Buff Riku: Chain of Muscles
by Buff Riku
Summary: An irreverent comedy about a certain muscular teenager's journey through Castle Skyrim—er, Oblivion. Read and discover how massive Riku's biceps are and how the Organization is completely incompetent. Inspired by the the Games Repainted community.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Beginning of Beginnings

Riku woke suddenly, as if he knew he had slept through his alarm on the day of his final exams. His bright blue eyes scanned his surroundings. His silver hair flowed, though there wasn't any breeze. "Wh-… where am I?" he asked. "What time is it?"

" _Stay asleep,"_ a man's voice told him, seeming to echo off nonexistent walls.

He tried to sit up, but the sheer force exerted by his abdominal muscles in this weightless world sent him spiraling into two somersaults before he was able to regain balance and float upright. He moved his arms and legs as though he was treading water, but since there was no water in this world, or even air, for that matter, his motions only set him further off balance. After a few minutes of experimentation, he managed to regain stability by mimicking a T-stance.

" _You should remain asleep, here, between light and dark,"_ the man said.

Riku quickly realized that the caveat to his method of balance was that he was upside-down, as the voice was coming from somewhere above his feet. He collected himself into a ball as best he could and tried expelling air from his lungs to give himself momentum, but that only succeeded in launching him into a perpetual spin. "Between… what?" Riku asked, trying to face the source of the voice, but not having much luck. A realization hit him as memories came flooding back. He flailed aimlessly, his powerful arms whipping about in panic. "The king!" he gasped. "Where's the king? Together we closed the door to darkness… and he still owes me, like, twenty bucks!"

" _After that, you came drifting here by yourself. You did not have the strength to overcome the darkness."_

Riku arched an eyebrow at that, self-consciously flexing one of his massive arms. The diameter of each bicep was well over forty centimeters, let alone the limb it was attached to.

The voice continued. _"Or, maybe you were close to it."_

"Close to what?" Riku asked.

" _The darkness."_

Riku waved a massive hand dismissively. "Nah, we're just friends."

" _That's not what I meant."_

"Look, no offense to 'ol Darky, but have you _seen_ its face?"

" _Look, would you just—"_ The man sounded frustrated, but this frustration melted into his former, mysterious demeanor as he said, _"Turn from the light. Shut your eyes. Here, blanketed by the darkness, sleep is safety. Sleep is eternal. But…"_

There was a bright flash of light behind Riku. He sighed, flapping his arms in an effort to turn himself around to see what it was about. He wasn't very successful at first, flipping at an angle and only catching the light out the corner of his eye. Eventually he got himself mostly upright, as it were, at a forty-five degree angle. That was enough for him to see it—a bright blue card, its center displaying a picture of a strangely familiar castle. It shimmered so noisily Riku wondered if it was some kind of firecracker. "What's this?"

" _It is a door to the truth. Take it, and your sleep ends as you take the first step toward the truth. But know this—"_

"Sweet, thanks," said Riku as he snatched the card. When nothing happened, he waved it around a bit. "How do you use this thing?"

" _Wait, wait; don't you want to hear the warning?"_

"Dude, tomorrow's leg day. I can skip shoulders once, maybe, but I'm already way behind schedule for this week," Riku argued.

"… _The truth will bring you pain. Will you still go?"_ the man asked.

Riku bent the card a bit, ignoring the voice and puzzling how to use the card. He pinched it between his thumbs and index fingers, bending the edge a bit. "Maybe I have to break it…?"

" _No, no! That's a collectable! Jesus, just wait a minute…"_ A pause. _"There. Don't let the Door Between Worlds hit you on the way out."_

The card began to glow brighter, and brighter, until it was so bright that it hurt Riku's eyes. He held it as far away from his face as he could reach.

When it was over, Riku finally felt the force of real gravity pulling at his body, and he felt to the floor, cracking the marble beneath his feet when he landed.

He flexed, arching his back. The fifteen-year-old boy stood six feet tall at the shoulder, his form demonstrating his fondest pastime: Bodybuilding. Though his shorts somehow managed to stretch across his bulky thighs and rear, no single article of clothing could cover his titanic torso, which was completely bare, exposing for all to see the sheer amount of accumulated muscle. His massive gains made his head look relatively tiny in comparison, though most people avoided pointing that out when they spoke with him. As he journeyed through worlds, his swole form had granted him the admiration and envy of many, though both sides agreed on what nickname fit best. Now, "Buff" Riku found himself in some sort of basement, and was puzzling on how to escape.

The walls were bleach white, with ornate fixtures and columns forming a symmetrical pattern around the room. A beige door sat at the end of the room at the top of a few stairs. What laid beyond was anyone's guess. Riku quickly realized that he had no idea where he was.

He looked at the door, then looked at the card. They didn't seem to be connected in any way, shape, or form. They weren't even remotely the same color, and the door didn't have a card-shaped keyhole or anything. What the heck was he supposed to do with it? Yet, there didn't seem to be any alternative exit.

He walked up to the door and banged his heavy fist on it, so hard it shuddered at the hinges. "Hello? Anyone home?" He looked behind himself. There was only a blank wall. He reached up his hand to knock louder, but luckily that same fist was holding the card; once it was close enough to the door, it burst into light with the sound of a delicate glass wind chime being smashed. The door pushed open, and Riku was able to enter.

Riku nodded, and said, "All according to keikaku." He cracked the knuckles of one massive hand, then the other, and said, "Yeah, alright. Let's do this." He stepped past the door.

* * *

Behind him, the door vanished. Riku looked around. He was in a world of pale granite and purple stone; an ancient castle held together by rustic pipes and steam. It was sunset, and the perpetually fading light cast a red-orange glow on the shambling architecture. Electricity twirled visibly through the air, holding up platforms and shuffling them around periodically.

Something occurred to Riku. The surroundings were, of course, rather familiar. "Wait a second. This is Hollow Bastion!" he remarked to himself.

" _What you see is not real,"_ the man said.

"Jeez, you're still here?" Riku complained.

" _Shut up. This is the world of your memory."_

"My memory?" Riku scratched his head. No wonder everything was floating around. His memory hadn't been that great since that one time he tried working out without a spotter.

" _The things you remember from your time at Maleficent's castle became a card, and that card became this world."_

Riku nodded, tugging at his foot, which had been caught in the apparently melting stone underneath him.

" _...Some aspects of it leave a bit to be desired,"_ he admitted. _"Still. You have seen everything here before, haven't you?"_

Riku looked around. "Uh…" He scratched his head. "I'll take your word for it. I mean, yeah, totally. But, uh, what now? I don't see anyone here."

" _You would meet the people in your memories… ordinarily._ "

"Ordinarily?" Riku asked.

" _Frankly, your memories are so messed up and jumbled that I have no idea who the hell you'll meet, or if they'll even be remotely similar to the people they are in real life."_

"Oh, you think I'm senile, huh, is that right?" Riku asked, shaking his fist at the sky. As he shook, the air around his arm became thick and viscous, and a clear gelatinous substance started flying everywhere, landing on the granite with audible _plops_. It slowly evaporated after making contact with the ground, bubbling as it did. "Well? I'm asking you a question, voice in my head! Answer me!" Riku demanded.

He stopped making angry gestures after a blob of goo landed on his perfect six-pack abdomen. He had to bite his lip to stop from laughing as it tickled him, but when he tried to scrape it off, his hand phased right through it.

"Oh, okay," Riku said, shrugging. "Well, I'm outta here." And he ran off.

* * *

This imperfect world also had a population of imperfect Heartless. They lunged at Riku like fleas and swarmed around him like mosquitos, though the nature of this world meant they moved with lethargy, often getting tangled up in the strangely gelatinous atmosphere.

Given his limited range of motion, slashing the heartless with Soul Eater wasn't a great use of his time, feeling almost like hunting houseflies with a toothpick. Instead, he started smashing their heads in with his bare fists, which proved both simpler and more effective. Now, ordinarily, heartless wouldn't be vulnerable to strikes made with a non-anime weapon—but Riku didn't remember that, and this was a world of his memories, after all.

Eventually, he'd battled through enough rooms to finally come across the weight room in the very basement of Hollow Bastion, which, strangely enough, was connected directly to the balcony four floors up. Riku didn't think too hard about the geometry of it all; he was just happy enough to find his gear.

He inhaled the stench of stale sweat and sighed contentedly. "Everything _is_ just how I remember it. Even this room…"

" _You... were supposed to find your old bedroom, not your weight room. You didn't even_ have _a weight room; you just slept on a bench press."_

"Oh, hey, you're back. Man, if you could, like, actually come here, rather than just being a voice, that'd be awesome, 'cause then you could spot me," Riku said, immediately taking up two solid steel, fitty-kilo dumbbells and doing bicep curls.

" _Do you miss Maleficent? After all, she's the one that gave you any weights to lift. All the while, you were tempted by the power of the darkness."_

"I dunno who you're talking about, but I do remember living here once. Pretty sure the reason I came here was that it was more convenient than using the gym in Traverse Town. The membership fees there are, like, two thousand munny." He muttered under his breath, "'Effin Moogles run the whole damn town."

" _But you left your home, your family behind, all for what? Half-decent equipment?"_

"Uh, probably. I mean, when I was lifting back on Destiny Islands, I had to bench-press tree trunks. My hands got so many splinters they called me Treant. And, one time, a hive of bees fell right on my pecs. That is the type of swole you do _not_ want."

" _Oh, man, that sounds awful. I hate bees."_

"Yeah, right?"

There was a pause in conversation as Riku proceeded to do eighty reps in a row on both arms, silently wishing he'd 'remembered' heavier weights.

" _So, um, how long are you going to stay here?"_

Riku shrugged. "Um, there isn't that much more I can do without a spotter. And, to be honest, these weights are getting kinda flimsy," he added, shaking the steel dumbbell to illustrate. It flopped around like a half-cooked noodle. "Maybe there's stuff I remembered better somewhere else."

Riku set the weights down and got up, trotting onward, having barely broken a sweat.

After a few more rounds of pummeling, Riku found himself in the central chamber of Hollow Bastion. It was circular, with a fountain at the center, the bronze spigot in the shape of a roaring lion's head. A mirrored set of stairs, both as halves of a semicircle, led up from the ground of the room up to the second floor. Riku stood on a balcony. It creaked under his weight.

"Are there only Heartless in this castle?" Riku asked as he hopped down to the ground floor. He landed with a thud that sent tremors through the nearby columns. "Maybe I could teach one of them to spot me," he mused.

He walked over to the fountain, waiting for the man behind the voice to speak up and say something pointless and irrelevant. When it didn't, he sighed, and began to walk out.

" _I bet you're wondering where the people from your memories are."_

Riku shrugged. "Not really, no," he said. "Not many people that came from this place are really _worth_ remembering... uh, probably."

" _You're saying you're abandoning them? That you'd rather not see them ever again?"_

Riku scratched the back of his head. "If you're talking about Sora and Kairi, then I'm pretty sure I'll see them again no matter what. Sora follows me around like a lost puppy, and Kairi, well…" He flexed his huge muscles unabashedly. "I've caught her looking, let's say. All the others, well, I can do without. Really, all I want out of life is to get as buff as possible. I'm sure I can get someone else to spot me."

" _Then why the hell did you pass through the door to darkness? Why'd you fight Sora in the first place?"_

Riku tapped his index finger on his tiny chin. "Good question. As far as I can remember, I thought that the powers of the darkness would make me even more swole. When I found out they didn't, I said 'seeya.' Seems pretty straightforward to me."

" _What's hard to understand is why you're seeing Hollow Bastion at all when you apparently don't care about it in the least."_

"Well, I mean, I did have some great workouts here. Probably made some nice gains," Riku said. "I mean, Maleficent isn't that bad a spotter, when she had the time. Where is she, anyway?"

" _Ugh, hell if I know. Just keep smashing your way through the castle. If you run out of rooms, call me. I'm going to take a shower."_

Riku nodded and jogged out of the chamber.

* * *

A few dozen clobbered heartless later, Riku found Maleficent's throne room. The dark fairy was sitting, cross-legged, on her throne. She had neglected to put on her formal attire, and was instead wearing a blood-red nightgown. A mug of tea, long since emptied, sat at the base of the throne, with the phrase "I Really Wish I Weren't _Here_ Right Now" painted on the side. In her left hand, she held open a magazine, _World Domination Weekly,_ and in the other, she held her staff, which she was presently using to pick her teeth. She set the bulky toothpick down when she saw Riku and rolled her eyes. "Oh, good heavens. For the _last_ time, I will _not_ spot you again. You nearly took my foot off the last time. Some of those weights are heavier than _me!_ "

Riku grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, yeah, I know, just stopping by, I swear." Something occurred to him. "Wait, aren't you supposed to be, like, dead?"

The vile sorceress threw back her head in exasperation. "Riku, I swear, you haven't retained a single _modicum_ of information since you got here. I'm a figment of your _memory_ , same as all the rest!" She straightened out her magazine even as it began to melt a bit. "Apparently you remember me as some bratty ingrate who reads manuals on how to take over the world, but I suppose I won't really be able to convince you otherwise, now will I?"

"Hey, I must remember you pretty well, since you're literally the only other person in this castle," Riku said.

"I'm not _people_ ; I'm a _fairy_ , you imbecile," Maleficent said, switching the order of her crossed legs. "Frankly, I'd prefer _not_ to be remembered, since the only reason I'm here in the first place is because you're obsessed with forcing me to ensure that you don't crush yourself during one of your five-times-a-day workouts! Heaven forbid I even _once_ ask you to renounce your friends and family, train in the dark arts, or even fetch the morning paper! You're worse of a freeloader than Pete!"

"Man, I didn't think I remembered you feeling so strongly about this," Riku said.

The witch folded back her newspaper, looking at Riku entirely bemused. "You remember me _extremely_ kindly _._ I would like to think that the _real_ me would be hitting you upside the head right now, you disgusting pile of flesh." She resumed reading. "At any rate, I have no interest in you. You're a failure as a disciple and as an investment of my precious time. If you would, please leave this world so that I may once again experience the bliss of nonexistence."

Riku smiled weakly, turning around and walking away with his hands on the back of his head. "You did make the best minced meat pies, though, Maleficent."

"That's because you never asked what was in them."

Riku grimaced. "Good point."

"Now get out of my house."

"Right," Riku said. He walked toward the door, then considered "Um… how?"

Maleficent rolled her eyes again. "Must I explain everything for you? You have to punch me square in the jaw and kill me! I'm the boss of this world, after all."

"Woah, isn't that a little extreme?" Riku said, turning around to look back at her. "I mean, I don't have any reason to fight you."

"Don't blame me; I'm not the one in charge. By some definitions, I don't really exist at all," Maleficent said, turning to the centerfold of her paper. "So, get it over with. The anticipation is annoying me."

"Jeez, Malley; we both know I'm way stronger than you." He looked up at the ceiling. "Hey, voice guy! Cut me a break! Us two are pals, y'know?"

Meanwhile, Maleficent had her head in her hand, a vein on her temple bulging out in frustration. There was fury in her small, sarcastic smile. "You know I _hate_ that… that stupid pet name!" A few tendrils of dark energy swirled around her robes, wisps of green fire floating in the air around her.

"Well, at the end of the day, I'm not gonna hit a girl, so we need to find some other way out of here," Riku said, turning around, oblivious to the fact that the force of pure darkness seethed behind him. Any mortal man would have cowered in despair as the wicked woman behind him took her ultimate form, but the green flames emanating from her ritual of transformation deflected harmlessly off Riku's massive shoulders. He was about to exit the room when he heard Maleficent's voice again, this time deeper and raspier.

"Would you hit a dragon?"

He turned around. Before him sat Maleficent's ultimate form—herself, in a dragon suit, sort of similar to the kind people would wear at conventions, or a child's birthday party. She stood perfectly upright; the dragon suit encasing her was anthropomorphic, with its head sitting dopily inert on top, a floppy tongue hanging out the front and the eyes on either side of the head staring in vastly different directions. Maleficent's head poked out the middle of the dragon's neck. The rest of the suit was as mediocre in construction as its head jewel, with rubber claws, saggy legs, and a bulky torso that looked hot enough to give any Disneyland employee dry heaves.

"Woah," Riku said. "Maleficent, I had no idea you were a furry."

"I'm not a furry; I'm dragon-kin! _Dragon-kin!_ " Maleficent yelled, stomping the ground angrily with her foot like a frustrated toddler. The force of her stomping made her entire suit ripple. In a moment of composure, she looked up at Riku, deadpan, and said, "I hate you."

She leapt at Riku with the full force of her draconic fury, a supremely stupid-looking charge. He sidestepped her. She lunged at him again. He stuck his arm out and held her an arm's length away while her mushy claws scraped along with the rest of her feet on the carpet and her upper limbs flailed at him uselessly.

After a couple minutes of this, she stopped to catch her breath, wiping her brow with her sleeve. "Gosh, is it hot in here," she remarked, tugging at the collar of her suit.

"C'mon, Malley; I don't wanna fight you," Riku said.

Maleficent only fumed. "Did I not _just_ tell you never to call me that again?!" She leapt at him, swatting at his face with her rubber claws. Riku caught her swipe, and when she tried to break away, he held on to her costume, letting go of the hand within. Unfortunately, before he decided to let go of the costume, Maleficent pulled it off herself by breaking off a couple claws still locked in Riku's indecisive grip.

She was furious. "You _fiend!_ This costume cost me thirty thousand munny on Etsy! It was a custom commission! I was going to take it to the next _festivallll!_ " she screeched, backing up from his hand and trying to tackle him.

He hopped aside, but before she was able to regain her balance, he grabbed the tail of her costume and held her up by it. Her body sagged to the bottom of the suit, stretching out the feeble material it was bound by and giving the impression that it was originally made for a much larger, burlier man.

"Let me down! If this costume rips, I, I'll…" Maleficent, now completely red-in-the-face, searched desperately for an avenue of threat she hadn't already exhausted. "I-I'll trap your fat ass in the Door to Darkness forever!"

The room instantly chilled by twenty degrees. There was a glint in Riku's eyes, his expression now deathly severe. He tossed Maleficent up in the air, then caught her by the collar of her costume and pulled her up close to his face.

"Did you just call me 'fat?'" Riku said.

Maleficent blinked. "Eh?"

With that, the room shook as Riku uppercut Maleficent with such titanic force that she crashed through the many floors above him in Hollow Bastion and sailed off into the distance.

Faintly, one could hear her yell as she flew, _"Team Heartless is blasting off again…!"_

Riku, satisfied, dusted off his palms. A little black card, similar to the one he had used earlier, floated down before him. On it was a picture of Maleficent in her dragon suit, though she was a tad blurry. Whoever took the photo must have snapped it the instant her face hit the ceiling. Riku shrugged and put it in his back pocket. Maybe it'd be useful later.

Seeing nothing left to do, and having no interest in Maleficent's mug or magazine, he left the chamber.

* * *

He exited the throne room to find himself walking straight back into the room he'd started in at the beginning of all this, a pale, white, ornate chamber. The door closed behind him before he thought to hold it open, but after a moment of consideration, Riku realized he had, in fact, progressed. Though the room he'd entered had the exact same layout as the one he'd left, this time, there was both a door behind _and_ in front of him. It was only feature distinguishing between the two rooms.

Riku sniffed the air. Something smelled. It was a heavy smell, thick and humid, like a sauna, or warm lotion, or spicy floral cologne. He knew who owned that smell. He grimaced, turning away from the door.

" _Why do you shun the darkness?"_

Riku took a deep breath. "Look, I know you saw everything that went on with Maleficent. Can we cut straight to the point?"

" _I think you know that, at this point, I'm not going to take 'no' for an answer. Darkness is your weapon. You must accept it."_

Riku shrugged. "Okay, darkness exists."

" _That's not what I meant!"_

Riku laughed. "Well well well, how the turn tables."

" _Stop resisting. Accept the darkness. You have no choice…"_

A black portal opened in front of Riku. It quickly dissipated, revealing the Lord of Darkness himself. He wore a V-neck collared long-sleeve shirt with thin vertical stripes running down the otherwise black fabric. The V was so deep that it left the majority of his dark olive chest exposed, almost down to his navel. His top was tucked into a thick belt, accentuating his hourglass figure. He wore pants as dark as a starless night as well as jet-black loafers with red soles. His steel gray hair was tied in a long ponytail that hung down past his shoulders. Emblazoned as his belt buckle was the Heartless insignia. Now materialized, he finished the sentence he had started as a voice: "…if you are to, like, totally be _mine_ again."

"Ansem," Riku growled, taking a few steps forward toward the center of the room. "I'm surprised you chose to disguise yourself this long."

"Aw, shucks, looks like you missed me after all," Ansem said, tipping his gray fedora in Riku's general direction. "Did you know they offer theatre classes in Traverse Town? I was supposed to be in a production, even! I had to cancel, though, 'cause I found out I was busy during rehearsals. Y'know, with the whole drowning every single world in darkness thing. But it's still something I really wanna do, so while I've been in your heart, I've been practicing! Neat, huh? I think I've gotten pretty good. Shooting for that whole, 'mysterious narrator' role."

Riku facepalmed. "All you've been talking about is darkness this, darkness that. It gets old, y'know!"

Ansem puffed, blowing a few strands of hair out from in front of his face. "Oh, that's rich. Mister Protein Shake over here calling _me_ a one-trick pony."

Riku sighed, folding his arms, and said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "I can't even _guess_ what _you're_ here for."

Ansem's eyes lit up. He strutted closer to Riku, one foot perfectly in front of the other as though he was dancing tango. "Ooh, that sounds like fun! C'mon, guess, guess," he said excitedly. Next to Riku, who was half a meter taller, Ansem looked comparatively tiny, but that didn't seem to phase him.

"Um…" Riku put a hand on his chin, stroking it as he thought. _Didn't Ansem just say what he wanted me to do?_ he thought. It wasn't that hard to guess, anyway. "I'm guessing you want me to rejoin you in your quest, or something."

"Close, close!" Ansem said, daintily skirting around to Riku's side. The dark lord seemed to be as light as a feather. "What I actually want, though, in _clearer_ words, is for you to call me, um..." He hopped up and lingered in the air for a moment, his lips right by Riku's ear as he said with a drastically lowered and softened voice, "... _daddy._ "

Riku tried to swat Ansem away, but his attack was effortlessly dodged. Ansem arched his back at an unnatural angle to evade, holding onto his fedora and doing a backflip, landing perfectly a few feet away.

"Eugh, gross!" Riku said. "Being around you makes me feel like I'm being constantly coated in slime, just, layering it on, all over me, all over my chest..."

" _Mmhmmm_ ," Ansem said with music in his voice, covering his mouth as he laughed. "My, I might take you up on that."

"It _wasn't_ an offer," Riku said.

Ansem shrugged. "In any case, I tip my hat to you." He tipped. "I knew you'd be the one who'd most appropriately service me." He held out his arm. "Now be a good boy, and come home to daddy."

Riku's response, of course, was to raise his fist and yell _"Way too creepy!"_ before charging at Ansem. He undercut toward the nimble fiend's dainty chin, but before the strike landed, Ansem vanished and appeared behind him.

"Yeah, Riku, mm, flex for me," he said as he dodged each of his opponent's strikes, sidestepping, ducking under, or leaping over them, even at one point leaping over Riku and stepping on his head. "Get your freak on, baby!" he yelled.

Riku leapt back, panting and pointing at Ansem. "You're the one that's gonna get freaked on!"

Before Riku could realize his gaffe, Ansem pursed his lips and made a kissing noise, using his right hand to hold up a V sign right next to his mouth. "You can freak on me anytime you like, Riku~."

Riku yelled in frustration and charged Ansem again. This time, the Lord of Darkness leapt up around Riku's head and wrapped his legs around the teen's neck, strangling him. Riku struggled to get free, but found that Ansem's grip was as strong as titanium.

"Can't... breathe... thighs... too... strong...!" Riku was blue in the face after a couple of seconds, what with how hungry his muscles were for oxygen.

"Honestly, Riku, to think that you could harm me at _your_ level is actually kinda cute," he said with a giggle. He eventually let go of Riku and leapt away, leaving him a choking mess on the floor as he struggled to regain his breath. "Maybe you should try something more your speed, like, um…" He looked up, scratching his chin with an index finger as he thought. His eyes lit up in inspiration. "Oh, I know! We should do yoga together! There's this great new place by the Coliseum…"

Riku chose not to listen, instead covering his ears with his beefy palms. His efforts didn't save him from Ansem coming over and stepping on his face with his loafer.

"Are you even listening? Gosh," he said as he leapt back before Riku could grab his leg.

"Excuse me for not wanting to listen to your _nonsense_ ," Riku replied, pulling himself back to his feet. He pointed at his chest with his thumb. "I am a _man._ What _men_ do is one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit ups, and one hundred squats every day! With a little running on the side." He pointed at Ansem. "You promised me that the darkness would make me strong—it didn't. It just made me emo. But," he said, pointing at the ground, "if you wanna go surfing, then we'll talk."

"It's impolite to point, you know," Ansem said, rolling his eyes and flipping his hair back behind his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at Riku's suggestion. "Surfing, though? Really?"

"It's something I've always really wanted to try!" Riku declared. He flexed both his upper arms, his entire body sparkling as he demonstrated his superior fitness. "Because even when I'm not possessed by darkness, I'm still a total show-off!"

"Surfing is fine; it's the beach I can't stand," Ansem said, sticking out his tongue.

"Why's that?" Riku asked, returning to normal standing position.

"I hate sand. It's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere," Ansem explained.

Riku shrugged. "I mean, that's pretty dumb, but it's whatever I guess."

"So is that a no on yoga?" Ansem asked.

"I'm too busy making massive gains to bother with that," Riku said.

"Yikes," Ansem remarked, arching both his eyebrows and biting his bottom lip in sympathy. "Your tendons are going to be like _fireworks._ I can hear them now: Pop, pop, snap."

"You keep my tendons out of this!" Riku demanded.

From seemingly nowhere, a new voice spoke up. "Riku's right! His tendons have nothing to do with this! This is a battle between light and darkness!"

There was a shimmering noise, and a ball of light descended from the ceiling. Riku looked up in shock as it approached him. "That voice… your mousiness?!"

The ball of light cleared its throat. "Ahem, your _majesty,_ Riku." It floated in a circle around him. "Remember, Riku, you're not alone. Listen close: The light will never give up on you. You'll always find it, even in the deepest _waaaah!"_

It didn't get to finish, as in that moment Riku snatched the orb out of the air and threw it right at Ansem's stupid face. "TAKE THIS!"

It whizzed right past its target, ruffling Ansem's ponytail a bit before smashing into the wall and shattering.

Ansem looked back at the dent in the wall it made, wide-eyed. "…That wasn't in the script," he mumbled to himself. He cleared his throat and turned back to Riku, faking a laugh. "Wow, you just threw away your _only_ chance at victory against me. Like, bravo."

"I'll never lose to the darkness, and I don't need an anthropomorphic mouse with a copyright fetish to tell me so!" Riku said.

"Pfft, whatever," Ansem said. He shrugged, dropping his hands to his sides. "You're still not getting past _me_. Not even that little blip of light could save you from _my_ darkness."

Riku readied himself, taking a low stance, ready to strike. Ansem, meanwhile, yawned a bit, pushing his fedora down on his head, trying as best he could to look unimpressed.

There was a pause, both warriors, classic rivals, waiting to see what the other would do.

Ansem acted first. He leapt forward, sticking out his fist.

Riku was quick to react, sticking out his fist to meet Ansem's.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Ansem had the upper hand, choosing paper over Riku's rock. Riku gasped, staggering backward, but quickly recovered and met Ansem on the field again.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

This time it was Ansem who was caught off guard by Riku's rock, completely countering his scissors. He was shocked, and grasped at his non-existent heart, his fedora almost falling off.

"Ready to give up?" Riku asked.

Ansem shook it off. "Not a chance."

They met once more, arm to arm, both fighters wounded, but both far from giving up. They each had one final shot at victory—one chance for each to prove to the other that he was, indeed, the best. Or, at least, better than the other one. They readied themselves.

"Rock, paper, scissors, _shoot!_ "

Their yells echoed through the chamber, a gust of wind somehow creating a cloud of dust and debris in the formerly spotless chamber. It took a few seconds to settle. Riku sneezed, but kept his position firm as he waited to see his fate. He held his fist steady—his rock against Ansem's… Riku's eyes opened wide.

It was a tie!

Riku and Ansem both grit their teeth, each staring the other dead in the eye.

Despite the situation, Ansem snickered, daintily brushing some stray hairs out from in front of his face. "We both know how this is going to end, Riku."

Riku rubbed his palms together, warming them for luck. In this moment, it was as if the weight of the entire world hung on the next throw. He smiled confidently, the chamber's unnatural light glinting off his pearly whites so bright it caused lens flare, and said, "No spoilers."

Stillness on the battlefield.

"Rock!" Riku said, his polished arm holding his clenched fist high.

"Paper," Ansem replied, widening his stance and holding onto his hat with his off hand.

"Scissors," both men said, wind whirling around them, though only Ansem was wearing enough clothing that it dramatically flapped about.

" _Shoot!"_

And, when all was said and done, Riku chose rock, and Ansem chose scissors.

" _Yes!_ " Riku yelled in victory, jumping and pointing his index finger straight up. Unfortunately, the ceiling was so low that he stubbed it. "Ow, ow, ow ow!" he yelled, shaking his injured digit before biting on the knuckle. He didn't let it spoil his victory, though. "I win!" he stated, pointing his non-stubbed index finger straight at Ansem.

"Psh," Ansem said, looking away and trying his best to look disinterested. "Enjoy your victory while it lasts."

Riku scratched his forehead. "Wait, doesn't this mean that I get to, like, banish you from my heart forever? I won, best two out of three."

Ansem arched an eyebrow at Riku, then rapped his knuckles on his temple. "Oh, when did I ever say it was best two out of three?"

"It's _always_ best two out of three, you… cheater!" Riku yelled.

"Aww, did I get you _excited?_ " Ansem asked with a pouty tone. "I suppose I shouldn't be _too_ hard on you. It _is_ true that almost all of the rules in this universe are arbitrary and stupid. But, ehe," he giggled, winking at him condescendingly, "everyone knows that."

"So if it's not best two out of three, what is it?" Riku demanded.

Ansem threw out both his arms in a shrug and opened his right eye, casting a smug glance back at his rival. "Best seven out of thirteen."

Riku growled a bit in frustration. "Fine, then. Come at me."

"I'd come at you all day if I could," Ansem said, "but fighting in the depths of this ugly, humid basement is just _horrible_ for my mood _and_ my complexion. Tell ya what." He pulled a card out of his back pocket—at least, what Riku _hoped_ was his back pocket—and tossed it at him. "Take this and meet me upstairs. We'll finish our duel… if you make it that far."

Riku caught the card. "What, wussing out already?"

Ansem laughed. "That would be a bit… premature. Look, bad as your memory might be, I hope you remember how these cards work, at least. Take that one and, y'know, advance through the castle and stuff. Along the way, I hope you'll learn a thing or two about light and darkness. Rule number one—" he stuck out his hand, holding up one index finger, "—running from the darkness won't distance you from the light."

Riku was about to retort, but paused. Something about that last sentence didn't seem quite right. "Uhh...?"

Ansem blinked. He held up an index finger and said. "Sec." He turned to the side and hunched over, trying to use his hand to disguise the fact that he was looking at an index card that was almost entirely black with ink. "…Oh, bollocks."

Riku scratched his temple. "Um, what?"

"Look, never mind. I need some… beauty sleep or something," Ansem mumbled, putting the card away. Character resumed, he added, "Just climb some stairs and get back to me, kay?"

Riku folded his arms. Ansem had lost a bit of his menacing glow. "Look, I'm not even _running_ from _anything_. I don't give a crap about light and darkness. So I'll climb to the top of this castle, like you ask, but if—in the end—I _still_ don't care… would you _please_ just leave me the hell alone?"

Ansem shrugged. "Suit yourself. But there's one more thing I have for you. A little see-you-soon present."

He reached out his hand and did some sort of hocus-focus gesture. Suddenly Riku felt as if there was a hand inside his chest squishing around his organs. It didn't feel painful, just… uncomfortable. A dark aura seeped from his chest, and he staggered back a bit, clutching at it. His entire body felt feverish.

"B-… Bad touch! Bad touch!" Riku yelled.

"Oh, don't be like that. You know you _love_ it," Ansem said, grinning. "Annnd… there. Just did some spring cleaning. You should find that the darkness you'd hidden away is all nice and _presentable_ now." He winked. "Try it sometime. It's quite a rush."

"I just told you that I don't _care_ about the _dahknass…_ " Riku swooned a bit as a wave of nausea hit him. " _Heuuk._ "

Ansem held up his hands in a shrug. "Look, all I did was move some things around. Your heart is, like, totally disorganized. Good luck when you're forty, by the way. They'll have to do some serious digging for the triple bypass." He yawned. " _Any_ -way, whether you use it or not is up to you. But it's time for my noon-o'-clock, so…" He did a quick heel-turn and held up his hand in a wave as he walked toward the door, away from Riku. "Ta."

A dark portal rose up from the ground just in time for Ansem to step into it. The darkness enveloped him, and when it dispersed, he was gone.

Riku shook off the sickness and inspected the card Ansem had given him. It looked like the same card as before, but the picture inside was blank. It carried the same disgusting scent as Ansem, so Riku held it far from his nose. He flipped it over. In orange sharpie, to contrast the blue of the card, was a note.

" _555-030-6969 Call me! XOXO –Ansem"_

Riku heaved a sigh. "At least it'll disappear when I use it to open the door."

And so it did, as Riku found when he began to leave the lowest basement of the castle behind. The light of progress shined upon his face so bright he had to cover his eyes before he stepped through the portal leading forward.


	2. Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1-1

Meanwhile, in This Place

A man by the name of Zexion sat in a pale white armchair nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the surrounding furniture. He was wearing bifocals, but due to the way he styled his black-gray hair, with a large swathe of it hanging over his right eye, they were functionally quarter-focals. He had opened what looked like a newspaper, but closer inspection would reveal that it was, in fact, simply a compilation of that year's crosswords all in one convenient issue. It was titled _Dawn Daily: Crossword Edition._

A dark portal sprung up from the ground. When it cleared, it revealed another man. He was strongly built, with fiery orangish-red, short-cut hair styled to make him look like a zany cactus. He was wearing the exact same uniform as Zexion was: A thick, black, hooded robe with a zipper that ran all the way down. There were a few useless metal tassels hanging from the collar of the uniform, as well as a chain which only served to frustrate those that ever tried to take it off. This was because a long zipper bisected the front of the robe, but if one was ever to try to use the zipper, they would run into the chain, and then they'd have to do that awkward sort of thing where you pass the zipper from one hand to the other instead of doing it all in one clean swipe.

"Are you thinking about the chain again?" the second man asked, his voice low and gravelly.

"Psh," Zexion muttered, straightening his paper. "To think, Lexeaus, that you even suspect me of pondering something so trivial."

There was a brief pause.

"…How did you know?" Zexion asked, turning around to look at him.

"When I entered, you looked at my chain, then your own, and started grimacing," Lexeaus replied.

"Hmph." Zexion tried to focus on his puzzle. The corner of his eye twitched.

Lexeaus sighed, looking at the ceiling. "Here we go."

"It really is absurd, though, isn't it? This chain," Zexion said, setting his pen and paper on his lap as he took both hands to shake the object of his indignation. "It doesn't serve any purpose. It doesn't have a charm on it that deflects, say, magical energy. Or detection attempts. I have looked into it, you know. I tested it myself. The chain has no reason to be here. None. Worse than freeloading, it's detrimental! I have to carry this around all day! Not to mention the fact that if someone grabs ahold of it in a fight, well, I'm finished, am I not? This chain is sabotage. _Sabotage._ "

"So take it off," Lexeaus said, exasperated.

"I tried. You know I've tried. You were there!" Zexion said. "I took it off, and you know the first thing that happened? The self-destruct sequence! I was set on _fire!_ Don't you remember?"

"Oh. I thought that was Axel paying you back for that time you made a word scramble of all his catchphrases and emailed it to the entire Organization," Lexeaus said.

"That was _Tuesday._ This was _Monday._ " Zexion took a deep breath, gritting his teeth and lowering his gaze back to his comforting crosswords.

Lexeaus took a heavy breath. "Hummm." He rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger. "Have you ever noticed that the letter X is engraved onto most of the chain links?"

Zexion set his paper down and closely inspected the links himself. "Huh, you're right. What of it?"

"Perhaps the presence of the X allows Xemnas to spy on us from any distance, and record not only our position, but our conversations as well," Lexeaus said.

Zexion looked up incredulously at him. "Seriously? That has got to be the _dumbest_ thing I've ever heard of."

Lexeaus shrugged. "Remember when Demyx was busted for visiting a strip club? I'm not sure he could have been caught any other way."

Zexion rapped his knuckles against his forehead. "I keep forgetting that, despite all odds, we is a Christian organization."

"If only more people attended my Sunday service," Lexeaus mumbled wistfully. "Say, what was the solution to your Axel word scramble, anyway?" he asked, scratching the top of his head. "I never ended up finishing it."

Zexion thought for a moment. "I believe it was, ' _NO HOMO THO_ '."

Lexeaus pushed air out through his nostrils disapprovingly. "No wonder he set you alight."

Zexion huffed. "I really thought you'd take my side on that one."

Lexeaus folded his heavy arms. "You know I can't abide personal insults, Zexion. It erodes trust between members of this organization."

"...I was beginning to wonder why you were sent out to the doldrums with the rest of us, Lexeaus, but now I believe I understand," Zexion said.

"Hmm, why is that?"

"You're really no fun at all."

"I'm here to make sure you don't spend your entire day doing crossword puzzles."

Zexion sighed and straightened his paper. "Honestly, Lexeaus, there used to be something between us, something special, but I think we've lost our emotional connection."

"Perhaps it was when we lost our emotions?" Lexeaus suggested.

Zexion nodded, looking contemplative. "Perhaps. Even still, sometimes I get the sense that you only stop by to remind me of work, and prefer to spend the rest of your time in your own personal non-existence."

"That… repeat that?" Lexeaus asked.

"Never mind. We're getting off topic. The point of all this," Zexion began, staring angrily at the chain resting on his chest, "is that there's some sort of chain-related conspiracy going on, and I won't rest until I'm at the bottom of it."

"Uh huh," Lexeaus said. "And how are you gonna do that?"

"The same way I solve all my problems," Zexion said with confident vigor, holding his ballpoint pen high in the air before returning its point to the page. "Waiting aaand watching."

"That doesn't sound very proactive," Lexeaus said.

"The best way to solve problems is to wait for the problems to solve themselves," Zexion said.

Lexeaus gave a thumbs up. "Ah, quoting directly from organization policy. I like it."

Just then, another portal opened, and out walked a pale man with blond hair, dressed in uniform as well. His bangs were as long and sharp as icicles, and he looked irritated. "What is going on here, Zexion?" he inquired. "I want an—" Just then, he ran his foot into the base of Zexion's armchair. He retracted his foot into both his hands and hopped around, yelling, _"Ow-ow, ow ow ow ow ow!_ "

Zexion rolled his eyes, straightening his paper. "Not this again."

"How am I supposed to help it?! All the furniture here looks the exact same as the damn _floor!_ " he yelled.

"Nice to see you, too, Vexen," Zexion muttered, lettering an answer in the crossword grid.

Vexen tossed him a condescending glance. _"Anyway,_ what I wanted to mention was—"

"It's such a shame," Zexion interrupted. "The Organization used to be the rope that bound us together."

Vexen gaped. "You're only number six! How dare you interrupt—"

"Let it go, Vexen," Lexeaus said.

Vexen was fuming. He looked up at Lexaeus angrily, then back at Zexion. Thus commenced a five-minute pause in conversation where each of them exchanged menacing looks at each other.

Zexion eventually broke this pause. "How come we each act so angry at each other all the time if we're not supposed to feel anything at all?"

" _Zexion,_ " Vexen hissed, "why are you wasting my extremely limited screen time bringing up plot holes? What we should _really_ be doing is—"

"I agree," said Lexeaus. "Zexion, tell us, what did you detect?"

"Give me a minute. I want the most accurate results possible," Zexion said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scouter, which he attached to his left ear. He pressed a few buttons and a few lights popped up on the vizor. "...Visitors," he said, one hand in front of the right side of his face. "I'm picking up two power levels in the castle's lowest basement. One of them was... Maleficent. And… she's getting closer."

Vexen scoffed. "Don't be absurd. The witch is gone. She cannot return from the realm of darkness of her own—"

Lexeaus held up his exceedingly large hand. "Wait. I think I hear something."

All three listened closely. There was a muffled noise coming from below. They looked down at the floor just as the room began to quake, shaking slightly as if on a beat. A muffled yell seeped up through the floor, and that's when the noises became a lot clearer— _wham wham wham wham_ —when finally Maleficent burst through the floor of the meeting chamber. She was only visible for a flash before she sailed upward, crashing through the ceiling, and the ceiling beyond that, and the ceiling beyond that, and after a few seconds more her scream became redshifted, then inaudible.

The three peeked down the hole. It seemed to go on forever. Then they looked up. The hole in the ceiling seemed to on forever, too.

"So… which one of us is gonna explain this to Marluxia?" Lexeaus asked.

Zexion coughed. " _Ahem._ As I was saying. The scent belonged not to the _real_ Maleficent, but to an, uhm, not very convincing double. But I truly cannot say much beyond that, as the double has… escaped my range," he admitted, tapping a few more buttons on his scouter as he glanced up at the ceiling. "I believe our _other_ visitor may have caused this situation."

"And who is it?" asked Lexeaus.

Zexion covered his mouth with his sleeve dramatically. "I don't know for sure. But the scent was very similar to that of the Superior."

Both Vexen and Lexeaus looked at Zexion oddly.

"I don't know what's creepier," Lexeaus said, "the fact that you call Xemnas the Superior, or that you know what Xemnas _smells_ like."

"Err, anyway, it wasn't _exactly_ the same, was it?" Vexen asked. "I'd want to know if someone else has figured out a way to replicate my perfumes. At any rate, this _truly_ piques my curios—"

"Now, what to do?" Zexion asked.

There was a long pause. Each of the three folded his arms, simultaneously contemplating, or at least acting as though they were.

Lexeaus was the first to speak, a small rarity. "We wait. See what develops."

"You read my mind," Zexion said. "I shall get back to sniffing."

"And I shall get back to…" Vexen began, but he trailed off when he realized the others had already summoned and entered their corridors of darkness, vanishing into thin air.

* * *

Before long, Riku had found his way to the next floor of Castle Oblivion. He was careful not to hit his head on the rim of the archway this time leading into yet another off-white room. He took a deep breath, then almost gagged. "Eew, something reeks!" He thought for a moment. "That smell… It's the kind of smelly smell… A smelly smell that smells… smelly." His eyes widened. "It's the _darkness!_ "

He flailed his massive arms, denting the columns before collapsing and rolling around like he was on fire. "Ew, ew, darkness! Get it off, get it off! It's all over me! Yuck!"

" _Calm down, Riku!"_ a chipper voice sounded from above.

That got Riku to stop flapping his arms about for a minute. "Your Mousiness!" He watched the little ball of light slowly descend to the ground before shimmering a bit, then bursting and revealing the image of [description redacted due to copyright claim].

" _Majesty_ , Riku, _majesty,_ " Mickey said tersely.

"Mickey, you've gotta help me, I don't wanna be emo again!" Riku yelled, hurrying forward to grab and shake the anthromorph. He eventually noticed that his hands were phasing through Mickey as though he was a hologram. "Oh, weird, you're all see-through and stuff. What's up with that?"

"Hey, hey, get your hands off the goods, Riku! This game is supposed to be kid-friendly!" Mickey said, taking a few steps back. He took a good look at himself, seeing that [description redacted due to copyright claim]. "Funny, huh? I can only send a bit of my power to this place. That's 'cause some weirdo sent my equipment flyin' into a solid rock wall a while back."

"Wow, what an idiot," Riku said. "Like, who would even _do_ that?"

"I know, right?" said Mickey.

"So are you gonna sue him?" Riku asked.

"Not… yet," Mickey said. "Anyway, Riku, your troubles with darkness aren't troubles at all! You just need to take a shower. You reek!"

Riku inspected his underarms, which were each a jungle of greasy, jet-black curls, then flexed proudly. "All right! I have _pits as dark as the blackest night!_ "

Mickey shuddered, averting his eyes and whistling the _Steamboat Willie_ theme. Once Riku lowered his arms, he said, "Well, Riku, I've got a request for ya."

"Request?" Riku asked.

"Listen, Riku," Mickey began. "Just because darkness holds you, don't let go of who you are."

"I thought you said the darkness was just my _wicked stench,_ " Riku said.

"It's, erm, well, never mind that," Mickey said hastily. "Just keep doing what you're doing. Never give in to the darkness, no matter where it's coming from—within, or without. But please, don't forget. Even in the darkest darkness, there's always a little bit of light."

Riku inspected his underarm again. "Light within darkness…"

Mickey cringed. "No, no, not like that!" He covered his eyes with his palm and thought for a moment. "Um, say, Riku, do you remember the Door to Darkness?"

"Oh, you mean Kingdom Hearts?" Riku asked.

"No, no, I mean the door to the _door_ to Kingdom Hearts," Mickey said. "And beyond that is the Realm of Darkness."

"Wait, so the Door to Darkness is _inside_ the Realm of Darkness?" Riku asked.

"No, the Realm of Darkness is behind the door to the Heart of all Worlds, and…" He shook his head. "Anyway, don't think about it too hard. Even I had a hard time figuring _this_ one out, and I'm _still_ not sure I completely understand."

"...What were we talking about, again?" Riku asked.

"I'm not even sure anymore," Mickey admitted. "I've been off-script for about five minutes now. Something something 'don't give up,' something, 'the light,' something 'Kingdom Hearts…'" Mickey trailed off.

Riku pointed both his index fingers straight up at the ceiling and yelled triumphantly, _"Gambaru!"_

Mickey covered his eyes with one hand and waved the other at the muscley teen. "Riku, for the love of all that is intellectual property, lower your arms!"

He begrudgingly complied. "So, when are you making your way out here?"

Mickey shifted a little bit on his feet. "Oh, I'm getting here as fast as I can, Riku, but traffic is _terrible_ today, so…"

"Y'know, you still owe me some munny." Riku pointed a finger at him. The finger was about the same diameter as one of Mickey's arms. "Promise you'll get here _._ "

"Well…"

Riku waggled his finger closer, through Mickey's nose. " _Promise._ "

Mickey sighed. "Don't worry, Riku. We're connected, you and me."

"Great!" Riku said. "…No homo, though. Right?"

"I'm married," Mickey said curtly.

"Great," Riku reaffirmed. "But... to a girl, right?"

Mickey draped a gloved paw over his eyes. "Ugh, Riku... _yes,_ I'm married to a girl."

"Great," Riku said, nodding. "And... you're sure about that, right? I mean, did you, like—"

Mickey, red in the face, tail sticking straight out behind him, stamped one giant shoe down on the ground. It made a squeaky noise. " _RIKU!_ "

"Alright, alright," Riku said, holding his hands in front of his chest. "But, like... you should probably make sure you find out, one way or the other..."

Mickey had already vanished, and, with nothing else to do, Riku made his way to the next floor.

* * *

Riku's consistent advance through the floors left the trio of Vexen, Lexeaus, and Zexion quite puzzled. The formermost was pacing anxiously, his boots scraping across the marble floor and kicking up dust now and again as he walked one way, turned, and walked the other, head angled toward the floor and brow furrowed.

Zexion and Lexeaus, however, were puzzled in a different sort of way. The former was, of course, preoccupied with his crosswords, and the latter was toying with custom Jenga pieces. This particular tower-building box set wasn't terribly different from its branded counterpart; it was just custom-made to be as grayscale and boring as everything else the Organization touched. Lexeaus was trying to figure out how effective they'd be as dominos.

Zexion's eyes suddenly widened, and he straightened in his chair. He glanced around to see if either of the other two had noticed his sudden change of posture. Seeing that they hadn't, he set his newspaper down, took a sip of his tea, then spit it out dramatically with the exclamation, _"I'VE GOT IT!_ "

Vexen turned around so suddenly he hit his shin into the leg of a nearby chair, and Lexeaus accidentally knocked over his dominos.

The pain didn't seem to detract from Vexen's puppy-like excitement. "Oh! Oh! What did you—"

Zexion rose from his chair in his fervor, jangling the chain on his uniform that he was so obsessed with. "The chain is _designed_ to activate the self-destruct! It's in case of capture, so we can end ourselves for the glory of the organization!" he spouted.

Vexen put his palm to his face. Lexeaus went back to his pseudo-minoes.

Zexion seemed unphased, and he continued muttering to himself, "How brilliant. Conniving! Despicable! Oh, that's the answer to 5-across, too," he said gleefully, kneeling and pressing his paper against his thigh so he could scribble something down. "Oh, and the person that suddenly appeared in the basement is Riku," he added as an afterthought.

Vexen nearly fell over. "Impossible! Do you believe Riku has returned from the Realm of Darkness? Because if you're correct, it might mean—"

"If there's one scent I'm absolutely positive I can identify, it's that of the Superior," Zexion said.

Lexeaus grimaced.

Zexion continued: "Riku's existence—it was once doubled in the darkness."

"Would that be the reason you, uh, caught wind of the Superior instead?" Lexeaus said.

"Don't insult me. If I ever caught the _Superior's_ wind, I would _definitely_ know," Zexion said.

Lexeaus shuddered and made a face.

Vexen started pacing again, one hand on his chin at all times. "So the dark power given to Riku facilitated his escape from its realm. Fascinating! I wonder if—"

"Never mind that. What I want to know is why he appeared _here_ ,in Castle Oblivion," Zexion said as he widened his stance and put his own hand in front of his mouth, closing his eyes and trying to look contemplative.

Vexen raised both hands above his head haughtily. "The answer's really quite _simple,_ honestly." Once he was sure he had the full attention of his company, he continued: "His existence resonates with—"

"Oh! Sora's upstairs," Lexeaus said with a snap of his fingers. "Got the memo from Marluxia earlier. Something about using Ramune to mess with his head. I didn't read the whole thing," Lexeaus said.

Vexen's expression drooped and placed his hands over his face.

"What does a fruit-flavored soft drink have to do with manipulating Sora…?" Zexion pondered. He thought for a moment. "Unless he meant _Naminé_."

"Pretty sure it said Ramune," Lexeaus said.

Zexion stepped in front of his cohort. "In one hand," he said, raising his right, "we have an easily manipulable nobody with powers over memory that can make Sora think he's been Xemnas's lapdog from birth, and in the other," he raised his left, "fizzy soda."

"Have you _met_ Sora? Kid would fall for a rock with drawn-on anime eyes," Lexeaus argued.

Zexion considered this. "Fair. And a rock _does_ fairly accurately metaphor Kairi's character."

"Is nobody going to talk about the fact that Marluxia didn't even bother to _consult_ us on this?" Vexen demanded. "It's as if he—"

"—Thinks we're incompetent?" Zexion asked. "I can't possibly fathom why."

"It's probably because he doesn't think he needs us, and that he can get Sora to Xemnas without troubling we who guard the basement," Lexeaus proposed. "He was always a good seed, and I'm sure he wants to complete the mission to the best of his ability."

"A foolish plan indeed," Vexen said. "Everyone knows the highest rank Saix will ever give you is a B minus. I've never seen higher, between myself _or_ Demyx. At any rate, Sora's is _not_ the person we should focus our efforts on. The entity that holds _true_ value is—"

"Riku," Zexion said.

"Riku," Lexeaus agreed.

"So what should we do about it?" Zexion asked. "Perhaps something ethical this time?"

Vexen laughed. "Oh, you're quite the character. Ethics? In _my_ good Christian organization? _Please,_ " he chuckled. "At any rate, the Roxas replica model version 2.0 is still cooking, so now's a great time to go collect samples!" Vexen said, bubbling over with excitement as a portal of darkness formed around his person. Before long, he had vanished.

The remaining two thought for a little bit. Zexion pointed at Lexeaus's 'dominos.' "You know, we have a real set of those," he said.

Lexeaus pointed a giant finger at one of his giant, gloved hands. "With real ones, it's like trying to stack peanuts."

Zexion nodded. They thought for a little while longer, before he finally asked, "…Do you think we need to be at all relevant to the plot for the next, say, six hours? Because there's an anime I've been meaning to binge."

"Am I invited?" Lexeaus asked.

"Certainly," Zexion said.

"And it's not any of that moe crap?" Lexeaus asked.

Zexion rocked on his feet a bit, biting his lip. "Well, I mean… not exactly, but… Well, there's a _little_ , but really it—"

" _Zexion,"_ he pressed.

Zexion threw up his arms. "Ugh, _fine_ , we'll watch _One Punch Man._ Again."

They walked out of the room together, their conversation fading into the background.


	3. Chapter 1-1-1

Chapter 1-1-1

And Then This Happened

When Riku once again emerged from the somewhat empty world of his memories, a puddle of darkness was dripping from the ceiling. By the time he looked up to see what it was, a blonde-haired man was pulling himself out of it, slowly but steadily, as if he was stuck inside. Within a few moments, though, managed to free himself, only to fall, yelling and flailing, to the floor.

Riku thought to himself for a minute, scratching the side of his head. A new face?

Soon enough the other man had brushed himself off and stood up. "Ah, excellent, I'm not late. Good thing, too. I forgot today was Marluxia's botanical shipment. That's the heaviest traffic the In-Between sees all month," he said. Then he pointed dramatically at Riku. "I take it you're _Riku,_ the _Hero of Darkness!_ "

"Nope, just missed him," Riku said.

He tore at his hair. "Confound it all! Third time's the charm, they said…"

"I mean, that's my _name,_ but I'm not, like, _with_ the Darkness or anything. We're just friends," Riku explained. He pounded his fists together. "So, like, are you with Ansem? Because it's been a while since I've pulverized someone."

"You are… half correct," he said. "Let's just say it's not the Ansem with which you are _familiar_. He's Ansem, and yet he's _not_ Ansem. Perhaps a _nobody_ best conveys the idea."

"Aaaaaaand I've already stopped listening," Riku said. "Riddles never impressed me, and that one wasn't even designed to rhyme. So keep that in mind when you explain yourself to me in due time." He thought for a moment. "In the end, it doesn't even matter. How about we just skip to the part where we fight."

"That suits my purposes," said Vexen.

"What's your name?" Riku asked.

"Vexen. Why do you ask?" he said as water vapor in the air around him condensed, crystallizing into the ice that formed his shield.

"I like to know the name of whomever I kill," Riku said, preparing his massive fists.

"Oh, how very _edgy_. There must be a darkness growing inside you after all," Vexen said.

Riku paused. "… _Nuh-uh._ "

He ran forward and swung a left hook at Vexen, but he missed and shattered a marble column instead. It tumbled around him, throwing dust up everywhere. Riku coughed, and swung another punch with enough force to clear the air around himself. He was just in time to see Vexen throwing a barrage of ice chunks at him.

Riku dodged most of them, and shattered the rest in midair by swiping his palm to the side. Then he took another swing at Vexen. It narrowly missed him, and instead Riku's fist slammed into another column, sending it toppling down. Vexen sent a hail of ice shards at Riku, aiming for his abs and pecs, but they all deflected harmlessly off his massive gains. However, Vexen was considerably more agile than Riku. As a result, the battle quickly devolved into Riku chasing around Vexen and causing thousands of dollars in property damage while the Benny Hill theme played over the intercom.

After just a few minutes, the room was totally destroyed, and nearly unrecognizable. Vexen was getting winded, but Riku showed no sign of slowing down. In a last ditch effort, Vexen threw up a wall of ice, only for Riku to smash through it as if it wasn't even there.

" _Oh yeah!_ " he yelled, ramming his fist right into Vexen's shield, which exploded in a blast of frost. Even that, though, was only enough to push the very very angry-looking Riku back a meter or two.

"Wait, wait, wait—!" Vexen said. He pointed to his left. "I-It's—a prank! It was just a _prank_ ; don't you see? There's the camera, right there!"

Riku's eyes were glowing with intensity. He was about to dash in for the finishing blow, but just then, a low structural groan echoed through the room. Cracks spread along the ceiling, which was no longer supported by columns, let alone walls. Riku glanced back at Vexen, but in the moment he'd been distracted, his opponent had slipped away, and only a quickly-evaporating pool of darkness remained.

The ceiling started to crack open. Riku looked around. "…This is fine."

Then it all collapsed on top of him.

* * *

Zexion and Lexeaus, meanwhile, were lounging together in the rec room, watching anime off of a laptop. Zexion was spread out lengthwise on the couch, and Lexeaus was on the floor with a gigantic bowl of popcorn about as wide as his arm was long, sitting cross-legged as close to the screen as he could get. His frizzy red hair got in the way of Zexion's view, but that wasn't extremely bothersome; he had _One Punch_ memorized by this point. He much preferred his position on the couch, under two giant blankets, with his head in a neck pillow.

Zexion's phone buzzed, and he fished for it under the blankets to grab it and read the text he'd received.

"News about Sora?" Lexeaus asked before shoveling another handful of popcorn into his mouth.

"It's from Larxene." He imitated her voice in falsetto: "'Ramune's shuffling Sora's memories like a deck of cards. So fun to watch.'" Dropping the falsetto, he continued: "Joy emoji, joy emoji, joy emoji, demon emoji, joy emoji, arms-crossed emoji, arms-crossed emoji… and so on. Looks like Marluxia may get his puppet after all."

"That kid is pretty dumb, so I hear," Lexeaus said. "Think he'd even be useful to us?"

"I can't imagine it'd hurt to have more than one key bearer. After all, that's why Vexen is here," Zexion said, "among other reasons, of course."

"So let's say they _do_ get Sora. Do you think there'll be any problems with, you know, him and Roxas? Would they, like, annihilate each other when they met, kinda like matter and antimatter?" Lexeaus asked.

"I'm not the person to ask," Zexion said.

"Yeah, but I hate talking to Vexen. He'll just go on and on and on forever, unless you stop him," Lexeaus said. "One time I asked him to clean up the microwave, and _that_ conversation didn't end until his third prototype ran past swinging a giant chainsaw and tearing up the walls." He frowned at the memory. "That was _half_ of my last vacation day. _Half._ "

"Well, anyway, what I'd be most interested in is seeing is how we'd be able to manage three people that all technically have the same weapon," Zexion said. "…You know, we should really try to get this research peer-reviewed at some point."

"Can't. Too unethical, remember?" Lexeaus said. "That's why we're the Organization and not the University."

"Mm," Zexion said, reaching to the end table to take another sip of hot tea.

They watched another couple of episodes before he saw fit to speak again.

"So, say. Do you think Marluxia and Larxene are… up to something?" Zexion asked.

"I'm sure they have our best interests in mind. We're all in this together, after all," Lexeaus said. "Saix told me that only the most special and unique members of the Organization had the privilege of going on a mission to Castle Oblivion. If anyone's plotting, it's probably Axel. It must suck to have made a friend only to leave him behind so soon after. I wouldn't blame him if he tried to sneak away."

"To tell you the truth, I have no idea what Axel's thinking," Zexion said. "But I guess it doesn't really matter. Vexen will do whatever he wants with his puppets, and leave the mess for us to clean up."

"Yeah. We always have to do all the work around here," Lexeaus said, taking another mouthful of popcorn.

* * *

Riku, having unburied and cleaned himself off, had reached the next floor of the castle when he felt the floor shake beneath him with a heavy _thump, thump, thump_ , as if someone was banging tree trunks into the floor. He was half-right. Walking toward him was a mirror image of himself so perfect that it made him stop in his tracks for fear he was going to run into a mirror.

Riku looked up and down at those chiseled, rippling muscles, watching his double do the same. It was so convincing that he had to make sure it wasn't actually a mirror. Unfortunately, the _other_ Riku had the exact same idea. Together, they pantomimed each other's flexes, finger-twists, silly walks, and manly poses for the better part of a half hour, all the while in perfect symmetry.

After a while, however, Vexen's voice sounded over the intercom. _"For heaven's sake, you're not the same person! Fight already!_ "

"Oh, I knew that," Fake-Riku said. He turned to Real-Riku, thought for a moment, pulled an index card out of his back pocket, studied it for a bit, then looked back up at Riku and said, "Surprised? I guess you should be. After all, I look just like you."

"No kidding, dude, you're _ripped,_ " Real-Riku exclaimed. "What do you bench?"

"Two fifty-gallon barrels of my own _sweat_ ," Fake-Riku said, snapping his fingers and pointing them at Real-Riku with a wink.

" _Ayyy_ ," Real-Riku said, giving his fake self a high-five. "So, uh, come here often?"

"Long story short, I'm an exact replica of you Vexen created from your data," Fake-Riku said.

Real-Riku's eyes widened. "My _data?_ " he exclaimed. He put a hand to his chin. "I knew I should have deleted my Facebook..."

"Dude, not gonna lie, you're gonna need to get rid of a lot more than your Facebook if you wanna get your face off the web," Fake-Riku said.

"Yeah... Well, I'll worry about it later. So, you're, like, a fake me, huh?" Real-Riku said.

Fake-Riku pointed a finger at Real-Riku. "Not a _fake._ Just because you're _real_ doesn't make you _better._ " He thought for a moment. "I mean, I was gonna say, like, we share the same body, too, and all, but… No homo."

"No homo," Real-Riku agreed.

"But yeah. We have all the same talents, and we can bench press the same amount. But there is one pretty easy way to tell us apart…" Fake-Riku said with a menacing glare. He pointed again at Real-Riku. "I'm not _fat._ "

What happened next was impossible to see, even with the highest quality slow-motion camera. The effect was nearly instantaneous. One moment, Real-Riku was standing perfectly composed, and the next, he had his fist buried in Fake-Riku's abs. If the replica had been perfect, the collision between an unstoppable force and an immovable object would have been problematic for how physics is currently modeled and understood. Luckily, however, Vexen's replica was not perfect. Because of this, though Fake-Riku was able to absorb the brunt of the blow, the residual force caused space-time to lapse, and as he flew toward the stairs, a rift in the fabric of reality opened up and swallowed him whole.

Only after all of the above occurred did the wake behind Real-Riku's fist collapse into a sonic boom.

Riku brushed the steam off his arms and legs, then turned to the surveillance camera and flipped it off. He stretched a bit and did some squats, keeping himself warm while the magnitude of his punch echoed through all existence. After a little while, a fluctuation in the space-time continuum opened, conveniently, a little ways off to the side. The first thing that flew out was a tall blue police call box, which promptly vanished. Then, a moment later, it spat out Fake-Riku, who careened into the wall. His body was glowing with cosmic radiation at first, but that only took a few seconds to die down.

Fake-Riku's mouth was agape. He was upside-down, back against the wall, but made no effort to right himself. Inexplicably, his outfit had changed from his standard shirtless-with-shorts to a slightly more complex shirtless-with-shorts _and_ a deep blue bandana around his forehead with the heartless insignia on it. He must have changed to Dark Forme in flight, though it seemed as though that didn't help him very much.

"I have seen things no meme should see," he murmured.

"Like it?" Real-Riku said, flexing. "I call it the Big Bang. You were supposed to come out in the form of a chicken nugget like all the others, but I guess you're nearly as indestructible as I am."

"Yeah, I'm pretty buff," Fake-Riku said. Still upside-down, he looked up at Real-Riku. "Sorry about, like, insulting your family's honor and stuff."

"Don't worry, the honor of the…" Real-Riku paused to consider his family's name. "Say, do I even, like, have a surname?"

Vexen's voice on the intercom interrupted their trains of thought. " _If you could survive the original's strongest move, then you have the upper hand! Attack!_ "

" _Was_ that your strongest move?" Fake-Riku asked.

"Dude, this isn't even my final form," said Real-Riku.

Fake-Riku looked at himself. His body was still red-hot and steaming from the exertion of travelling at incomprehensible speeds. "Yeah, sorry, but I'm going to have to bounce," he said, before scurrying up the stairs, flailing his arms and screaming his head off in total, unadulterated panic.

Real-Riku shrugged. "Shame. He was pretty buff."

* * *

Zexion, Lexeaus, and Vexen, who were watching the camera feed in a very crowded security room, were all grimacing by the end of that "fight." They were pressed up against each other, as the booth was hardly capable of housing one lazy incompetent, let alone three.

In reference to the replica, Lexeaus, who was in the center, asked, "You sure you added enough Chemical X to that one?"

"Maybe it was the testosterone levels," Zexion, who was on the left, suggested. He shoved Lexeaus a bit and said, "Hey, you're elbowing me."

Vexen ran his fingers through his hair, then scratched at the rapidly growing bald spot on the top of his head. "I'll... do some more tests, maybe send him after Sora, and..." He trailed off.

"Did any of us anticipate him being so... strong?" Zexion asked.

"I'm not sure we were _anticipating_ anything," Lexeaus said. "One thing's for sure, though. I really wish it wasn't my job to deal with him."

"Ditto," Zexion said. "Hey, Vexen, I have an idea. Could you make an _army_ of replicas?"

Vexen, who was balling up clumps of his own hair to deposit into a nearby waste bin, replied, "I'm not sure to what extent having _more_ of them would help. But even if I tried, the amount of dihydrogen monoxide that would be required to pump their blood would be—"

"Alright, so can we call in reinforcements?" Zexion proposed.

"I mean, if he's stronger than the three of us, then the Organization has no chance. We're the front line of defense," Lexeaus said. He nudged Vexen a bit and said, "Stop breathing on my neck!"

"I want to get the _replay,_ " Vexen insisted, rewinding and replaying the captured footage of Real-Riku shattering the standard model of physics with his bare fist.

"Right now this 'front line of defense' looks more like cannon fodder," Zexion complained.

As he spoke, there was a crashing noise, and the ground shook as though there was a toddler the size of a tractor careening forward. The security room was barred by a steel door, but Fake-Riku ripped through it like plastic wrap and then immediately reached his massive arms through the gap at Vexen, grabbing the scientist by the coat and vigorously shaking him.

" _SAVE ME, ICE DADDY!_ " Fake-Riku yelled. His skin was still steaming from his journey to the center of the universe, and it was starting to turn a nasty shade of lobster red.

Vexen's spine survived the throttling long enough for him to reach into his back pocket and grab a pokéball and say, "R-Riku, return!"

An infrared glow surrounded the frantic fake, and as soon as his essence was dissolved it was sucked into the red-and-white capsule.

Zexion arched an eyebrow at the display. "Do you have one of those for _all_ your replicas?"

"Of course! They're only data, after all," Vexen said.

"Even Xion?" Lexeaus asked.

" _Every_ Xion," Vexen said. "Though, I had to plant the working model's ball in Roxas's room, so that they would bond effectively." He licked his lips a bit and added, "You know, after a while, they even started obeying my commands. I got one Xion prototype to—"

"We're getting sidetracked. Vexen, can you fix that thing or what?" Lexeaus asked.

"Oh, I've no doubt. Just need to grab a needle..." Vexen fiddled around in his pocket a bit, the pulled out a sewing needle. At Zexion and Lexeaus's looks, he said, "What? A little cross-stitching nurtures the soul. Seeing as we don't have hearts, I figured—"

"Just get on with it," Zexion and Lexeaus said simultaneously.

Vexen huffed, then swiveled around the pokéball in his hand until he reached a tiny little hole with a button inside, too small for a fingertip, labeled 'reset.' He pressed it, and at the clicking noise, released. Then he shook the ball a bit, and said, "Riku, I choose you!"

Zexion and Lexeaus's eyes widened as they realized his error, and they collectively said "No-no-no—!" but it was too late. Fake-Riku's body was soon squishing each of them right up against the walls of the booth.

"Yo, pops, whaddaya need?" Fake-Riku said, apparently unfazed. He had returned to his Normal Forme, without the bandana, and his skin was back to its usual tone. "Uh, it's a little tight in here. Sorry if I start sweating. No homo."

"Hello darkness my old friend," Zexion mumbled. His face was pressed against the keyboard, directly under Fake-Riku's thigh.

"Riku, r-return again!" Vexen realized he had dropped the ball and said, "Dammit, where'd it..." His head was pinned against the wall to one side by Fake-Riku's meaty shoulder. He felt around with both hands for where he'd dropped the capsule, but couldn't find it. "Oh, never mind. Riku, can you get us out of this unfortunate circumstance?"

"Do you mind thousands of dollars of property damage? This stuff looks pretty expensive," Fake-Riku said.

"Just get your _butt_ outta my _face,_ " Lexeaus said. He was in the worst position of the bunch, having been forced to the ground by Fake-Riku's toned buttocks, his ankle a bit twisted, and his knees bent as far as they could go.

A few minutes and one shredded security room later, the three members of the organization were out into the hall, gasping for breath, while Fake-Riku flexed and stretched next to them. "So what's up?" he asked.

"Do you have any memory of the past few minutes?" Vexen asked.

Fake-Riku thought for a minute. "Uh, well, not really. I remember meeting the original, and since I'm here in one piece, I imagine he was, like, a total push-over and not even worth my time. Oh, but he was pretty buff, though."

Vexen looked over at Zexion, who shrugged back at him.

"...Yeeeaah," Vexen said, "...that. Precisely. That's why, for now, we're going to send you up against Sora instead. Do you... think you can handle that?"

"No worries. The real Riku was nothing. Sora won't be, either. They're no match for me," Fake-Riku said before starting to trot off to the left.

"The stairs up are _that_ way," Vexen called, pointing to his right.

"Oh, I knew that," Fake-Riku said, doing a one-eighty and lugging himself forward.

The three of them stood there for a while.

Finally, Vexen put his hand to his chin and said, "...I'm going to pay a visit to our friends above. Perhaps if I explain the situation nicely enough..."

He waited for one of the other two to interrupt him, but after a while he turned around to find they had already vanished.

* * *

Riku punched his way through the next floor, and once he was back into the 'castle' portion of the castle, he expected someone to be waiting for him. There was, but it was precisely the very last person that Riku wanted to see.

"Ugh, _Ansem_ ," Riku said, covering his nose and having his hand in front of his face to waft away the smell of lilac and lavender.

The Prince of Darkness was lying lengthwise on an ornate fainting couch. He had a rose in his mouth, and was holding a paint palette in one hand and a brush in the other. Atop the nearby easel, he was painting on canvas a picture of himself, in his current pose, complete with bench, palette, brush, easel and canvas.

Ansem set the brush down on the palette and took the rose out of his mouth to say, "Ahh, Riku, you're just in time for my second recursion." At Riku's expression, he said, "What, expecting someone else?"

"I was hoping the fake me would be here so that he could spot me," Riku said.

Ansem pursed his lips and tutted at Riku. "Tsk-tsk-tsk, fake? Oh, no... That's not exactly the right word."

"What are you saying?" Riku said. He rolled his eyes and added, "Ugh, and don't say something involving _'blah, blah, blah, inner darkness'_ because if you do, I'm gonna turn 360 degrees around and walk away."

Ansem sat up to cross his legs and shrug. He set his palette down before tossing the rose between his two hands with an amused expression on his face. "What can I say? You got me. I live only to spout nonsense at your beautiful, beautiful face."

Riku grimaced, then said, "Back on topic. Isn't the other guy just a copy of me?"

"Well, if he had performed better, I might call him a model. An example of what you should _try_ to be," Ansem explained. "After all, he accepts the darkness..." He lidded his eyes a bit, fluttering his unnaturally long eyelashes and ran his tongue slowly along the rim of his lips. "Just like you once couldn't _help_ but accept _me_."

Riku clapped his hands over his eyes.

Ansem switched the order of his crossed legs. "My, sensitive. Repression? Perhaps _you're_ the one who's being fake."

"Oh my God, dude, for the last time, I'm _straight,_ " Riku yelled.

"Fake—" Ansem said, holding up a finger, "—when you pretend to have no fear."

Riku furrowed his brow. "When have _I_ been afraid of the dark?"

"Right now. You're struggling _desperately_ with the darkness," Ansem said, covering his face with a hand except for his bishounen eyes. "Desperation is fear. I can smell it a mile away."

"So are we gonna fight, or what?" Riku asked.

"Psh," Ansem said. He tossed his rose up in the air and it became a card, which he caught, then tossed to Riku. "I'm not in the mood. Continue your _struggle_ with the rest of the castle, and then I'll consider seeing you again. I'm not so worried about you running away in the meantime." He pointed at Riku. "Because, eventually, you will return to me. You cannot _resist_ the darkness."

Riku flipped Ansem off with both hands as he vanished into the dark portal, then took the card, which had somehow turned into four cards, and walked toward the door leading up to the next floor of Castle Oblivion.

* * *

Meanwhile, topside, Axel, a tall man with long, spiky red hair, and Larxene a blond woman with two locks in the shape of antenna, were taking a break in the lounge. Earlier, Axel had been practicing combat techniques with his chakrams, but as time wore on he just started juggling them along with his spare pair. He kept it up for a good two minutes before his grip slipped, and a chakram sailed through the air and buried itself in the wall behind Larxene about a centimeter beside her head.

Axel cringed, expecting a yelp and a reprimand, but looked more closely to see that Larxene had her nose buried in a manga.

"You look engrossed," Axel remarked.

"Your _face_ is gross," Larxene spat. At that point she noticed the spike of a chakram a hair's breadth from her ear and flinched back. "Wait, did you _throw_ this at me?"

Axel went over to dig it out of the wall. He had to jimmy it a bit, and it came out with a metallic _shink_. He said with an aloof tone, "Not intentionally, I promise."

Larxene huffed, then flipped a page. "You and your desperate bids for attention."

"Well, what is it this time?" Axel asked.

" _Junjou Romantica._ Why?" Larxene said.

"I was wondering if you were finally checking out my... _recommendation,_ " Axel said as he picked up his spares and set them on the weapon's rack with the others.

Larxene glared at him. "The fact that you even _know_ about _Boku no Pico_ says a lot more about _you_ than it does about _me_."

"Hey, I thought it was well within your field of interests," Axel said with a shrug.

"That just means you're projecting," Larxene said, crossing her legs. "I hope you realize that most of the Organization thinks you're gross. It doesn't help that everyone knows you and Roxas are butt-buddies."

"Oh, now _you're_ projecting," Axel said. Before she could retort, he waved his hand at her dismissively. "Anyway, let's not go there. I was just making a joke."

"A joke, huh? Just like your love life," Larxene said, wetting the tip of the index finger of her glove and turning the page.

Axel was about to retort, but he noticed a dark portal opening to their right. Since the room didn't immediately stink of roses and tulips, he assumed it was someone from the basement levels, and indeed it was. Vexen came walking out, holding his smart phone in front of him.

"It should be right here," the scientist mumbled, tapping on the little screen.

"How can we help you, Vexen?" Axel asked, stepping up to him. "It's not very often we see you topside."

Vexen looked up, just now noticing where he was. "Oh, hello. I was just playing Dream Eater Go, but I had meant to come here anyway. Do either of you know if there's a Cyber Yog nearby? I swore I'd be able to find one in the area."

Axel shrugged. "I'd help, but my phone's on lease," he said, pointing over to the other side of the room, where a young blonde girl in a white dress was tapping on a phone, probably playing some kind of game.

Vexen turned to Axel's left. "Any help, Larxene?" Vexen asked.

Not looking up from her book, she said, "That game is for virgins and losers."

"Alllll-right," Vexen said, putting his phone in his pocket. "I came to see if I could lend you a hand."

"What, with Sora?" Axel asked.

"Yes," Vexen said. "You obviously believe this _Sora_ has much potential, but I remain unconvinced that he is truly worth such coddling."

"Oh, don't worry, I'll make sure we know one way or another soon enough," Larxene said, flipping another page.

"Be that as it may, I think an additional _experiment_ would show if he really is of any value to us," Vexen proposed.

Larxene put her book over her head and groaned.

"Something the matter?" Vexen asked.

"I just got your stupid, nasally voice stuck in my head as the voice for the main character, and it's, like, _totally_ ruining the romantic climax," she complained.

Axel had his arms folded, attention directed at Vexen. "I'm getting the sinking feeling that you're just using the term 'experiment' a little liberally. How much property damage can we expect from this particular... trial?"

"I'm a _scientist_. Experiments are what I _do_ , yes," Vexen mused. "Any resulting damage to facilities is... incidental. A necessary byproduct of my scientific method." He paused a moment, then added, "And I believe our insurance covers it."

Axel shrugged. "Well, as a man that appreciates explosions, I can't really say I argue so long as I don't have to clean up the mess. Larxene?"

"The further it keeps you away from me, the better," she hissed. In frustration, she threw the book across the room and yelled, "It's ruined. _Ruined!_ " She covered her head with a pillow.

"I gotta ask, though," Axel added after a moment of thought, "is testing Sora just a cover for testing your valet?"

"Ooh, nice vocabulary," Vexen remarked, "but I wouldn't trust him with my things. Yet, he _is_ a product of pure _research_ —my most powerful creation!"

"If you needed a gigolo so bad, Vexen, I'm sure Axel would have volunteered," Larxene said, finally standing up and joining the other two.

"Projecting," Axel told her with a warning tone. He held up his finger to preclude her annoyed response and said, " _Anyway_ , since you came all this way, you're gonna need this." He reached into his pocket and got out a little gray packet, which he tossed at Vexen.

It had on it the Organization's insignia, and a little message under it, which Vexen read aloud: "Every Member... wraps his member."

" _Uhh,_ sorry, pops, wrong pocket," Axel said, a bit red in the face as he took back the condom and this time reached into the _correct_ pocket. He pulled out a blue card and handed it to Vexen. Recovering a bit, he added, "A humble gift to my elder. I hope you use it to put on a very good show for us."

"I hope this is the _only_ gift you had in mind," Vexen mumbled, a wary glint in his eyes.

The three turned to the noise of Fake-Riku clambering up the stairs. When he finally entered the room from the spiral staircase, he was drenched in sweat. He huffed: "I was... on that... staircase... for _four_ _hours_."

Larxene's antenna twitched when she looked at him. "...Hey there, big guy."

"Uh, as I was saying," Axel began, turning back to Vexen, "That card holds the memories of Sora and Riku's home."

"Are you guys, like, playing Yu-Gi-Oh or something?" Fake-Riku asked, motioning to the card in Vexen's hand.

Larxene was evidently interested by this new arrival, and she looked at Fake-Riku with a predatory grin. "Hmm... with a little help from that girl over there," Larxene said, motioning to the teenager playing with Axel's phone, "we can give you all the _real_ Riku's memories." She giggled. "Maybe we can get her to forget you're nothing but a fake. In other words, we'll remake your heart so that you can be—"

Fake-Riku held up his hand and said, "Look, uh, insult accepted, but when you think about it, is anyone in this room _actually_ real? Like, aren't we all some version of something that isn't supposed to exist? Is being a fake supposed to bother me? If it should, why doesn't it bother you? We're leaving a lot of questions unanswered, here."

A vein on Larxene's forehead twitched in frustration. " _Clones_ shouldn't interrupt their _masters_." She glared up at Vexen and added, "Isn't that right _,_ _Vexen_?"

He arched an eyebrow at her. "I merely tried to make him as accurate as possible."

"Looks like he needs some _tuning_ , then," Larxene said, rolling up her sleeves.

Fake-Riku held his hands out in front of himself as if to bar access. "Woah, woah, woah, we just met. Don't get all handsy on me." After a moment, he added, "Besides, the real Riku is a wimp who's afraid of the dark. What do I want with the heart of a loser?"

Larxene looked up at Vexen with a fake smile that nevertheless very clearly summarized just how incensed she was, and with a sweet tone, she asked him, "Any objections? Speak now or forever hold your peace~!"

A dribble of sweat ran down the side of Vexen's face. "...Do you accept responsibility for your actions?"

Larxene reached into her pockets to pull out her eight knives in one fluid motion, one blade between each pair of fingers. " _Maybe._ "

"...It must be done!" Vexen said, his voice cracking a bit as he covered his eyes with both hands. Even still, the mad scientist couldn't help but peek through his fingers as the Savage Nymph approached his replica.

"You sure you're okay with this?" Axel asked him. "After all, Larxene goes through men like they're cheap chew toys."

"I told him I'd make good use of him, so, technically..." Vexen trailed off.

Fake-Riku warily watched Larxene's approached. "Look, I'm just here so I don't get fined," he said.

Larxene had mania glowing in her eyes. "Relax, kiddo, I don't think it's going to hurt _that_ much."

"You asked for it!" Fake-Riku said. He took a swipe at Larxene, but she had already zipped behind him, though he didn't see it. He swung his head around and yelled, "Where—?!"

That was when Larxene wound her leg up high behind her, then kicked forward, between Fake-Riku's legs, the tip of her boot lodging itself in his groin.

The screams that left Fake-Riku's mouth could only be heard by dogs and whales.

Vexen was agape. "Did... did you just _castrate_ my replica?"

"The family jewels are a little too large for _that_ ,but if he misbehaves again, dreams may come true after all," Larxene said, wiggling her ankle a bit before sitting down on top of the defeated replica's back. "What a stupid little toy. It couldn't even take one kick before it broke."

Vexen, still in shock, looked back at Axel, who shrugged and said, "I mean, it is kinda hot."

"And Zexion calls _me_ a degenerate," Vexen huffed.

Larxene affectionately pet Fake-Riku on his twitching shoulders. "But—look on the bright side!" She motioned over to the girl, who was trying to ignore the fact that she had just seen someone's masculinity shattered out of her peripheral vision. "Along with everything else in your head, Ramune will erase the memory of me crushing your nuts!"

At this, the girl finally piped up. "M-My name's not—"

Larxene didn't give her time to complete her complaint. "Shut up, Ramune, and get me some Naminé."

"Right away ma'am," Ramune said, rushing to the mini-fridge in the corner of the room and pulling out a glass filled with a pale yellow liquid. It was labeled ' **ナミネ** **.** '

As the drink was being retrieved, Larxene continued. "Ramune will fill your head with the loveliest memories you could ever hope for! You know, like when you had friends, a home, family... It no big deal that they're all lies, right?"

"Does that count as projecting?" Axel asked.

Larxene turned to glare at him and replied, "The next time you say that word I'm gonna project my foot up your ass." She then added spitefully, "I'm sure it'll fit just _fine_."

Axel turned to Vexen and changed the subject. "So, is there anything else you need from us before we lobotomize our newest comrade?" he asked.

"Well, we are having some... difficulty, let's say, with the _original_ Riku," Vexen admitted.

"What seems to be the problem?" Axel asked.

"Well, with one hand, he..." Vexen trailed off. He looked around. There was a faint screaming coming from below. "Wait a minute. Do you hear th—?" His eyes widened as he recognized the voice.

He dashed forward, pulling Ramune out of the way just as Maleficent crashed through the floor beneath her. Maleficent then crashed through the ceiling, and then through every ceiling above.

When she was grabbed, Ramune dropped the bottle she'd been carrying, and with a clinking noise it fell into the hole.

"My soda!" Larxene exclaimed, rushing over to peek down the hole. Her eyes widened as she peeked over the rim of the seemingly bottomless pit. "...Oh my God," she mumbled.

"That chasm," Vexen began, "goes all the way to the lowest sublevel of Castle Oblivion. It was created by a single punch from you-know-who."

Axel peeked over, then shook his hair as a bit of dust from shattered flooring fell on his head. He brushed off his hair, then looked upward to see that the hole now also seemed to go infinitely upward as well.

"...We'll look into it," Axel said. "Larxene, do us a favor and send a memo of this to Marluxia? About Real-Riku, and the witch-turned-deadly-projectile heading straight for the top of the castle."

"Right after I get another soda," Larxene said. She walked over to the mini-fridge and whined when she saw that it was empty. She slammed the door shut." _Ughhh._ Didn't the new shipment come in yet?"

"It should have," Axel said.

Vexen stroked his chin. "Ahh, so _that's_ why soda arrived in place of my new cross-stitching patterns. Methinks there's been a small-mix up."

Larxene marched over and grabbed Vexen by the scruff of his coat and said, "If you stole my soda I will cut you."

"No need to be so high-strung," Vexen said. "None of us below have any interest in sugar-water. It's in storage somewhere, probably behind Lexeaus's popcorn and Zexion's tea."

"And where is _that?_ " Larxene demanded.

Vexen shrugged with a smug look on his face. "Haven't the foggiest! Maybe if you paid us a visit sometime and helped us pest-control, we'd have some time to look."

They stared each other down a bit, but Vexen knew that, when it came to the safety of Larxene's soda, he had the upper hand.

Still, she wouldn't go down easily. "I'll find your stupid storage closet and tear it up if you don't tell me," she threatened.

"This isn't the schoolyard. Work for what you earn!" Vexen replied.

Larxene shook him a bit, but ultimately relented. "Ugh, _fiiiine_ , Oldy McGeezer," she said. She interlocked her fingers, then put them over her head to stretch. "I'll get out my emasculation gear and head down to the basement."

Axel opened his mouth to say something coy, but Larxene already had two fingers on his cheek, which she pinched on and tugged hard.

"You—watch Ramune and try to keep it in your pants _,_ " she said.

Axel pulled away and said, "Hey, hey, alright, alright. No fun allowed, I get it." When Larxene's back was turned, though, he summoned a portal of darkness and stepped backward into it, calling, "'Grats on the new squeeze!" just as he vanished.

She turned around just as the dark vapors dissipated. She grit her teeth, then vanished through a dark portal herself.


	4. Chapter 1-1-1-1

Chapter 1-1-1-1

I Can't Count

Larxene returned from her living quarters, her outfit now clinking a little bit with little metallic noises as she walked, as though many more toys than just her tried-and-true knives were hidden beneath her robe. Addressing the only other person in the room, she said, words envenomed, "Aww, why so _glum_ , Ramune? Is there something that's been _troubling_ you?"

Having seen a glimpse of what Larxene was capable of, Ramune smartly decided to keep her mouth shut, instead staring down at her balled fists. She tugged a bit on the hem of her dress, which was far too short.

Larxene didn't seem bothered by the lack of response. "Are you feeling _awful_ about tinkering with Sora's memory? Or maybe you—"

"Cut it out, Larxene," Fake-Riku said, squeezing through the doorway with a grunt and stumbling into the room. "Ramune—she doesn't want to remember Sora."

"Oh, is that so?" Larxene said, a bemused look on her face.

Fake-Riku walked over to Ramune and knelt down so that he could look up at her. "Don't worry. Whatever's hurting you... I'll make it go away." He reached into his hammerspace and pulled out a long chain. On the end of it was a plastic keychain tag. "I swear it on this—the good luck charm you gave me."

Larxene had turned around, poorly stifling a giggle fit, one hand over her mouth and the other hugging her chest. "The lucky charm... you... _it's_..."

"I'll always remember how much this means to you, and I'll never let you down," Fake-Riku said. He stood up and waved. "See ya."

Larxene leaned against a wall to brace herself, she was laughing so hard. Once Fake-Riku had left, she turned back to Ramune and said, "You made his lucky charm a piece of chewed-up _gum?"_

Ramune nodded, a small smile on her lips.

"That's just _amazing,_ " Larxene said, without a hint of sarcasm this time. "It's almost like you completely made his heart from scratch. Shame you can't do the same to Axel. Oh—oh my God, tell me you did the same for Sora's charm."

Ramune nodded.

" _Yes!_ " Larxene said, clapping her hands. "This is going to be _great_. I can't believe you transformed whatever Kairi's good luck charm was into freaking _gum._ At this rate, it won't be long before Sora forgets about Kairi _completely!_ " Larxene said, her venom returned. She gave Ramune a rough pat on the back. "And then he'll be all yours to—"

Ramune shook her head and interrupted her. "He won't forget," she said. "No matter how much I change his memory, Sora will never forget Kairi." She took a breath. "Memories of me—more false memories of me... will just make his feelings for Kairi even stronger than before." She hugged her arms to her chest. "Try as I might, I'm never getting out of the friend zone."

Larxene heard her out, but once she was finished, arched an eyebrow. "...You ever do this before?"

"Do what?" Ramune asked.

"Rewrite someone's heart. Like, before Sora and the fake," Larxene explained.

"Well, I didn't exist until a few months ago, so..." Ramune said. "Even still, my powers have limits."

"Limits? Limits?" Larxene knelt next to Ramune and took her shoulder. "Listen, sis. Between you and me? Your powers are, like, total bull. Sure, there are limits, but then there are plot devices." She thought for a moment. "Think of it this way. A little while ago I thought there was a limit to how much pain a man could experience, you know, before passing out. That limit is _shattered_ , though, nearly every other time I visit Traverse Town. So yeah, there are limits, but... You might surprise yourself one day!"

"...I need an adult," Ramune said.

"I am an adult," said Larxene. "Look, just think of it as incentive not to screw anything up. Do a good enough job rewriting Sora's heart. Then you can actually _be_ somebody, and no longer just Kairi's shadow."

Ramune wanted to say, _'That's not how this works. That's not how_ any _of this_ works _.'_ But she held her tongue.

"...You'll be real in Sora's heart!" Larxene added.

Ramune just glared at her.

As soon as things got awkward, Larxene said, "All this talk about pain has reminded me that I need to go to the basement to visit a certain pest. Talk to you later, Ramune."

* * *

Riku fiddled with the cards in his hammerspace. There were just two left. "If all these floors are made of my memories," he wondered aloud, "on which floor do they print these things?"

"They're not _printed,_ dumbass."

Riku looked up from his hand to see Larxene stepping out of a dark portal in front of him. He held up his hands and made a waving motion, as if telling her to slow down. "Wait, wait, wait, a _girl_ villain? In _my_ adventure? Hold up."

Larxene's eyebrow twitched. "Oh, this is gonna be a good one, huh?" She added, "We're a rare breed, but yes, Organization members _can_ be female."

"I think you're the first girl I've seen since I got here," Riku said.

"What about that witch you sent crashing through the whole of Castle Oblivion?" Larxene asked.

"...Maleficent's a girl?" Riku asked.

"Ugh, never mind," Larxene said. She absently juggled a knife with one hand. "Look, the cards are made from your memories. That's all you need to know, and probably all that you'd be able to hold anyway in that tiny head of yours."

Riku laughed. "Clearly you've never heard of the _neocortex regimen._ " He rippled his muscular eyebrows a bit. Fortunately for Larxene, the opacity of his head spared her the visual of Riku flexing his gray matter. "I work out _every_ muscle. And I _never_ skip brain day."

"I didn't come to watch you show off, dweeb. I'm here on pest control," Larxene said, taking out her other knives.

"Yikes, kills her own kind," Riku said, motioning to Larxene's antenna hair, which resembled those of a cockroach. "Anyway, if you're looking for a mouse, just missed him. He was a few floors—"

As he spoke, Larxene warped behind Riku and attempted to stab him in the back, around the base of the spine. Her dagger deflected off the solid-as-steel fibres that made up Riku's back muscles. And his muscles in general.

Larxene didn't have time to be shocked that her surprise attack barely drew blood; she had already anticipated Riku's counterattack and had dodged to the side. Riku, however, didn't counterattack. Instead, he was picking his teeth with her blade.

"Thanks, kinda felt like there was a mosquito on my back for a moment," he said. "We all good, now?"

Larxene frowned, then snapped her fingers, sending a jolt of electricity—about eight hundred volts—to her blade from afar. Riku grimaced at the sensation of electrocution and took the blade away from his mouth. Still, for a shock that was beyond lethal for most people stupid enough to hold one of her blades up to their lips, Larxene was perturbed by the fact that he wasn't at least writhing around on the ground by now, crying for his mom or foaming at the mouth.

So, she sent a fan of daggers right at his exposed abs. This turned out to be a mistake, as Riku had time to react, and tighten his six-pack into a magic mirror, perfectly bouncing back Larxene's attack and forcing her to duck. She turned back to her opponent just in time to see one of her severed antenna falling down in front of her. Her eyes widened, and she looked up at Riku furiously. "Do you know how _long_ it takes to fashion hair this way? Literally _hours_."

"Having seen Kairi style Sora's hair, yeah, I know. But hey, you did it to yourself," Riku pointed out. "So far I haven't laid a finger on you. And I'm not gonna, 'cause I don't fight little girls."

Larxene grit her teeth, her gaze murderous. No reason to hold back now. She brought her fist to her chest, then pointed at Riku's heart with her index finger. A solid stream of electrical energy flowed from her fingertip, intended to pierce Riku's heart and throw it off rhythm. Instead, he caught it in his right hand, then reached his other hand around to grab the flow of energy a little closer to the start. Then, as though the flow of superheated plasma was a rope, he snipped it off with two fingers and used the rest to floss his teeth.

"Ya know, it's been a while since I've done good dental care, so I really oughta thank you," Riku said as the energy crackled between his teeth After he was finished, he wound the plasma around his fingertip and tossed it aside, where it burst with a loud crackling noise.

Larxene didn't really know what to make of that. She had wanted to play with this Riku a little more, really pick him apart, and play with his weak points before putting him out of his misery. It was too bad, she thought, that she had to use her finishing move so soon before really getting a chance to do anything _fun._

She pointed behind Riku. "Look, over there!"

Riku looked. "What?"

As he was looking, Larxene zipped up, lifted her leg, and delivered unto Riku a swift kick in the nuts. Or, at least she thought she did. Kicking someone in so firm a place as their crotch always hurt a little, but the pain wasn't normally so searing.

Larxene yelped, hopping a bit on her good leg to create some distance, and trying not to place weight on her probably broken toe. At least Riku was dealt with... she thought until she saw that he was in the exact same posture as before, and what's more, still turned around.

"Am I supposed to be seeing something? I mean, unless there's something on this wall you really wanted me to see, like, a spider or something," he said.

Larxene couldn't tell at this point if Riku was being condescending or just a dumbass. "Hey, idiot, there's nothing there!"

"Then why'd you...?" Riku turned back to see Larxene sitting down clutching both hands to her injured foot through her boot. "Woah, did you hurt yourself on me again? Jeez, sorry."

"How did I... I missed?" Larxene asked, tears welling up in her eyes from how sharp the pain in her toe was. No, not toe; _toes_ —probably more than one was broken. It was hard to tell. It was as though she kicked a column barefoot.

"Ohhh, I get it now," Riku said, catching on quickly. He walked over to Larxene so that he could loom over her, and said with a confident grin, "You tried to kick me in the nuts, didn't you?"

" _Where the hell are your testicles?!"_ she asked bitterly.

Riku held up two fingers. "Two words: Steroids," he said. He laughed and turned back to the door, waving as he went. "Hey, that was fun, though. Stay alive, maybe we'll meet again. Hopefully then you'll be strong enough to actually fight." Then, before long, he had vanished behind the closed door.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, an hour ago..._

Axel, Vexen and Marluxia were playing three-way chess in the organization's upper lounge. They were all sitting on beanbags.

"Do... any of you know how this actually works?" Axel asked, fiddling a bit with a pawn. "I mean, it's a circular board, but there's a hole in the center, so I'm seriously struggling to figure this one out."

"I'm reading the instruction manual as we speak," Marluxia said, flipping through a little booklet. He was wearing stylish half-frame glasses that had a rose-tint lenses and a green-painted rim.

"Of all the things to kill time, you ordered _this?_ And you haven't even played with it _once?_ " Vexen asked.

"It adds an intelligent aesthetic to the game room," Marluxia said with a level tone.

"While Marluxia figures this one out, how about we talk about your little Riku-matic 9000," Axel suggested, leaning back so he could sink deeper into his bag. "He was supposed to counter Sora, wasn't he?"

"Counter, subdue, restrain, take your pick," Vexen said. "Just like Larxene is supposed to handle our _other_ problem."

"Ohh, I get it. Instead of going AWOL, he's doing some guerilla warfare, luring Sora deeper into the castle so he has a better angle to strike," Axel said, snapping his fingers and grinning. " _Very_ clever of you."

"Ugh, it's moments like this when I regret including sarcasm in the Organization's Emotion Rehabilitation Program," Vexen grumbled. "It's the only thing you ingrates ever want to imitate."

Axel placed a hand on his chest. "Don't worry, Vexen; I will never forget your lectures on how to properly portray 'Crotchety Old Man.'"

Vexen said, "Those weren't in the curriculum and you _know_ it, so—"

Marluxia interrupted him. "That's enough." He set the paper down, and then moved a pawn forward two. "The simple fact is that your project was a failure. You'd best not disappoint us again."

Vexen snorted as he jumped forward a knight. "Disappoint _you?_ I'm on tenure; there's no way you can—" This time, he was interrupted by the the pointed head of Marluxia's scythe shoved right up into his face, nearly touching his nose.

"I've been entrusted this castle and Ramune by Our Dear Leader," Marluxia said. "Defying me will be seen as treason against the Organization."

"'Traitors are eliminated.' I believe that's in the Organization's Constitution," Axel said as he flipped through the chess rulebook himself before moving his own pawn. "Right under 'Live, Laugh, Love'."

"Indeed," Marluxia said, letting his scythe disintegrate into flower petals. "At any rate, you must try a different approach. You will not emerge victorious from a direct confrontation with Sora."

"Pity to be so _ignorant,_ " Vexen said. "As you're only able to see the surface of things, I should not expect you to appreciate the true might of my intellect."

Axel snorted. "Sounds like someone watches Brick and Mortar."

Marluxia thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, Vexen, let us watch as you prove it."

"Pardon?" Vexen asked.

"None of us wish to be suspicious of a comrade," Marluxia said, though he was still avoiding eye contact.

Finally getting the message, Vexen grimaced and said, "Your insincerity is comforting," before surrounding himself in a portal of darkness. When it dissipated, he was gone.

Axel looked at Marluxia as if to ask, _So... are we still playing this?_ but it didn't look as though the Lord of the Castle was in a very playful mood. There was something Axel felt needed to be said, however.

"Did you know that these beanbags are, like, the worst possible thing for your back? Seriously," Axel said. "And they're leaking beads all into the carpet. I mean, I can vacuum it later, but..."

"They add a casual aesthetic to the game room," Marluxia said simply. He had he hands on his elbows, and was resting his head on his clasped hands.

Axel shifted a bit in his seat and said, "...Look. You give a challenge like that to Vexen and he'll, like, _seriously_ want to eliminate Sora.

Marluxia exhaled. "That would be an unfortunate _denouement_."

Axel waited for him to explain, then asked, "An unfortunate _what?_ "

Marluxia blinked. "Oh, pardon me." He thought for a moment. "The exact definition escapes me. Perhaps you should Moogle it?"

"Good idea." Axel reached for his pocket, but his phone wasn't there. "Aw, shoot. Doesn't Ramune still have my phone?" He looked over his shoulder and called, "Ramune? C'mere!"

"She's likely to be upstairs in the main chamber where we left her," Marluxia said. "Let her know that her hero is in danger, would you?"

"Can do," Axel said, summoning a dark portal and vanishing inside.

* * *

A few moments later, Axel arrived in the main chamber. Ramune was furiously tapping on the little screen of his phone.

"Woah there, tap any harder you'll break the screen," Axel said, fishing it from her grasp.

She reached for it pitifully, whining a bit. "But... but... High scores," she huffed.

Axel's eyes widened as he looked at the home screen. "Holy... just _how_ many apps did you download?"

"Ah, uh... Only a few," Ramune said.

Axel paled a bit as he realized that he had forgotten to disable microtransactions. "Uh, let's table your impulse control issues for now. I need to check something." He scrolled down to his security app and flipped through floor views until he found Vexen confronting Sora.

It didn't take long for his palm to reach his face.

* * *

Sora was a bit of a different breed from Riku.

The two had never been at all similar, and their paths only diverged more and more as time went on. Whereas Riku's physical form had grown exponentially stronger from year to year, Sora barely managed to stay on track with the lowest developmental milestones—physically. Where Riku spent his childhood lifting tree trunks and figuring out how to pack as much protein into an egg smoothie as possible, Sora, who was frail even by conventional standards, mostly sat indoors reading fantasy novels and daydreaming, though once he got well-fitting glasses he spent a lot of time outside looking at the stars. Unfortunately for him, glasses didn't cure his naturally duller wits.

As he, Dolan and Gooby made their way to the old mansion, they were chatting about how positively weak Riku had become.

Sora, speaking with a little bit of a lisp, said, "I don't think I've ever defeated someone so easily before. Usually it takes at least a little begging!"

Gooby, a sickly looking anthropomorphic dog with a pale, elongated, wart-covered face, said something unintelligible. His mouth didn't move when he spoke, and what noise he made was oddly garbled, and distorted as if it was the echo of a muted trombone.

Dolan let out a noise that may best be compared with a duck having an asthma attack, but by now both Sora and Gooby could tell it was his laugh. The duck's physical form was kind of hard to nail down; though it seemed to have a body, the duck-like creature only appeared out of the corner of the eye, and even then only as a disembodied head without a neck, eyes leering down over his flattened beak. Its expression was always the same: A smug, knowing smile.

Sora was about to make another crack at Riku, but he stopped. "Hey, are... any of you getting this weird sense of deja vu?"

"Wat?" Gooby asked.

"Are any of you getting this weird sense of deja vu?" Sora asked.

"Wat you mean?" Gooby asked.

"Are any of you getting this weird sense of deja vu?" Sora asked.

"gooby pls" said Dolan.

"I'm sure I don't know this place," Sora began, "but it's starting to feel really familiar to me."

"You must hab com here sometim before," Dolan said.

"No, and that's what's strange," Sora said, folding his arms, which were about as thick and strong as soggy twigs. He walked toward the mansion, then lost his balance when he tripped on an exposed root and fell flat on his face.

"It cud be like with Naminé," Gooby suggested. "You forgot lotsuf _otha_ stuf—"

"Her name is _Ramune,_ " Sora said, stepping up and brushing himself off.

"—and that's why you 'member this place."

"No, it's different," Sora reasoned. "With Ramune, it was like buying a games during the Steam Summer Sale. Memories came back one at a time, over time, but pretty quickly. But not now. Here, it's like I purchased a game that's in Extreme Early Access—I just have this _fraction_ of a memory. But I don't think I'm going to get a _real_ one anytime soon."

A nasally voice rang out from the ether. " _So,_ snooping around as usual I see."

Sora widened his stance as soon as Vexen had materialized in front of him, but lost his balance again and fell on his back. Dolan and Gooby just... stood there, unblinking, unmoving, and so blatantly unreactive that even the mad scientist coming to confront them was a tad unnerved.

Vexen didn't let it show, however. "You sound disappointed with the recent release of this world."

"Totes," Sora said, struggling to his feet.

"It's better than nothing," Vexen said with a shrug. He waggled his finger at Sora. "A question, then, for you. Your memories of Ramune, or your feelings here... Which of the two of these is more real, I wonder?"

"Wait, are we still making the gaming analogy?" Sora asked.

"I feel it's run its course," Vexen said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Well then, Ramune, of course!" Sora exclaimed. "Whatever it is that I'm feeling, I bet it's just another one of your mean little tricks."

Vexen's eyes darkened. With a wave of his hand, the sunset overlooking the gates of the manor was snuffed out, but the twilight still remained, plunging the courtyard into an eerie darkness. The temperature was immediately cut in half, and snowflakes began to float in the air, instantly crystallized from vapor. "Sora," he said, his voice deeply menacing, "do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks!"

Sora swallowed, and tried to summon his beyblade. It took him a few attempts, but it eventually answered his call, and with a burst of light appeared in his hand. It was a shiny plastic top with a yellow and gray color scheme.

"The memory's wiles can be cruel," Vexen began with a savage grin. He raised his left hand. "In its silence, we forget." He raised his right, summoning an ice crystal in his palm. "In its obsession, it _binds_ our hearts." He clenched his hand into a fist, crushing the crystal into dust.

Sora didn't respond. He shivered a bit.

Vexen frowned. "As I said, this place was created solely from _another_ side of your memory. It is on the _other_ side of your heart that the memory of this place exists. It is your _heart_ that remembers."

Sora took a deep breath, feeling the chill of the air rake his delicate nasal passageway. "Y-Y-You're wr-wrong. I'd d-d-don't know this p-pl-place."

"If you remain bound by the chain of memories and refuse to believe what is _truly_ found inside your heart," Vexen began, "then throw it away."

"It's inside me, i-i-idiot," Sora said, teeth chattering so hard that he was beginning to worry he'd chip them. "I can't th-throw it out even if I w-wa-wanted to!"

Vexen sighed. "If you don't listen to your heart, then you are _not_ a beyblade master. Just a slave to twisted memories." He grinned a bit and added, "Yes... Exactly like my Riku." He placed his arm in front of his torso, and the cold emanating from his body began to recede, collecting in front of him and crystallizing in the form of a gigantic blue shield. "Your existence is worth _nothing!_ You lose! Good day, sir!"

"Like _your_ Riku?" Sora asked rhetorically. "Worth nothing...?" He gripped his beyblade in his fist, looking at the ground, his shoulders shaking with teenage angst. "That's enough!" He shouted. " _You're_ the one who changed Riku and made him weak as tissue paper! Every word you've said is a _lie!_ "

Vexen grinned a bit.

"I'd never throw away my heart," Sora said. "I'm going to take you down and save Riku and Ramune. That's... what's in my heart!" he yelled, spinning up his beyblade and setting it loose.

Vexen raised his shield to counter, already planning his next move. The top struck him dead on with an impact strong enough to push him back a couple centimeters, which startled Vexen a bit, but he figured he'd adjust his plans accordingly... until he realized that the beyblade wasn't letting up. In fact, its sharp edges were ripping up the metal of his shield even as its constant amount of forward momentum continued to force Vexen backward, never letting him have any leverage even once he was pressed against the gate of the old mansion.

"This is impossible," Vexen yelled. "What about the first law of thermodynamics?"

"Your model doesn't take into account energy from the heart!" Sora said. He raised his arm, and the top stopped tearing up the center of Vexen's shield and instead spun around his uniform, ripping it to shreds until he was covered by nothing but polka dot boxers. He yelped and covered himself with his shield.

"Entirely uncouth!" Vexen complained. "I ran thousands of simulations and escaped all of them with my dignity _intact!_ "

"Yeah, well I have the power of God and anime on my side!" Sora yelled. "Now for the finishing blow." He placed the nail of his middle finger on the inside of the first knuckle of his thumb, then made a flicking motion. The beyblade retreated a bit, then zipped right at Vexen's forehead, clocking him so hard that, for a few moments, his head was surrounded by tiny, dancing, chibi Xions.

"Urrgh," Vexen groaned. He collapsed on his rear, his shield dissipating. "You have such strength, even at the mercy of your memory..."

"None of that matters," Sora said as the beyblade retreated to the palm of his hand. "Just put Riku _back!_ "

Vexen laughed, and there was a cruelty dripping from his tone. "'Just put him _back?_ ' Nothing I can do can repair what _that_ one lost." Holding his head, he rose unsteadily to his feet. "The Riku you speak of... has but one fate, to sink into the darkness. And you will _share_ that fate, Sora!" He paused for a minute, both hands on his head as he struggled to keep his balance, dark spots dancing in his vision. "If you continue to seek the girl, Ramune, the shackles will tighten... You'll lose your heart, and end up becoming Marluxia's pawn!"

"I understood less than half of that!" Sora exclaimed. "Would you guys for once just say what you mean?!"

Vexen took a deep breath. "If you keep going the way you are now... you're gonna have a bad—" He was interrupted by a flaming chakram sailing into his torso.

* * *

Axel had shown Marluxia the footage of Vexen enlightening Sora to the existence of his other self. Rather than handling the problem immediately, they decided to deliberate a bit over a game of pool, as was standard Organization protocol—to stand around and do nothing for a little while, and never act with urgency when a new problem arose.

Axel was trying to let Marluxia win the game, since he was his boss and all, but Marluxia was so staggeringly bad that it was a chore to miss so many holes and still keep a straight face.

"Let us recap what has happened to Vexen's little... experiment," Marluxia said as he chalked-up his pool cue.

"Uh, you need to chalk up the other end. You know, the thin one," Axel told Marluxia, who was holding the cue backward.

"Oh, of course; I knew that," Marluxia said, righting it.

"As for the replica... Well, it did about zero of the things any of us wanted it to," Axel said, aiming to narrowly miss hitting the thirteen into the corner hole across from him. It bounced off, luckily. "In fact, the replica so completely failed its goal that we're not even going to give it any more screen time."

"Indeed," Marluxia said. His composure was momentarily broken by his absolutely terrible shot, which knocked two of Axel's balls into their holes. "Oh, gosh darn it. Axel, your balls are always getting in my way."

Axel moistened his lips a bit, but otherwise showed no expression at all. "If Sora disappears, that would mess up the Organization's plans," he said.

"I trust that you know... what you need to do," Marluxia said as he aimed up his next shot.

 _Better than you, probably,_ Axel thought, frowning a bit as he watched Marluxia aim. The Lord of the Castle was holding the pool cue with both hands as though it was a baseball bat, and was attempting to strike the ball from as far away as was feasible.

"Haven't a clue, really," Axel said with a shrug. During the shrugging motion, he lost his grip on his cue and accidentally tossed it. He flinched as it struck one of the hanging lamps, shattering the bulb inside and sending sparks everywhere.

It just so happened that Axel dropped his cue just as Marluxia was taking his shot—that is to say, his swing—and he ended up ricocheting four of his balls each into different holes. It looked almost as if a flower had bloomed on the pool table. He looked up at Axel neutrally and said, "Do be more careful."

"Right, my bad. Outta my paycheck, et cetra et cetra," he mumbled, wrinkling his nose and waving his hand at the smoke from the open circuit in the damaged lamp. "Anyway, regarding what I should _do..._ Maybe you could spell it out for me."

"Vexen has clearly committed a treasonous act against the Organization," Marluxia said, grimacing as his next shot was just as awful as all the ones before it. "You must eliminate the traitor."

Axel turned around and said as a portal of darkness engulfed him, "No taking that back later."

The chakram struck Vexen across the side of the chest. He yelled and fell onto his back.

Sora turned around to see Axel, who was holding a dramatic pose, his mouth open, and his left arm up, index finger pointing toward the sky. His right hand held his other chakram at his side. He held that pose for a while, just to make sure Sora saw how badass he was. Then he stood up and put his hands on his waist.

Sora gasped. "Axel!"

He snapped his fingers and made finger-guns at Sora, puffs of smoke emerging from the tips. "Yo, Sora! Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Vexen struggled to his knees, clutching his side as his essence flowed out the smoldering hole Axel had torn in his side. "Axel... _why...?_ " His tone was ragged, as though he already knew the answer.

"For the glory of Satan of course," Axel said, summoning two columns of fire on either side of him. He snuffed them out with a wave of his arm and said, "Nah, I'm just here to enforce your newly instated gag order."

"Guh... Gag order?" Vexen asked. Speaking was a little difficult, as he was losing feeling in his face. The numbness trickled into his body like vines flowing through his veins, all stemming from the gaping hole in his side.

"Dead men tell no tales," Axel said with a savvy grin. "I came to keep you from talking too much... by eliminating your existence."

"No," Vexen said, rising to his feet and putting his hands up in front of him even as he stumbled backwards. "Don't do it!"

"Don't worry. Organization policy requires your death be drawn out and agonizing," Axel said. "Efficiency, after all, is against the rules."

Vexen racked his brain for ideas, and his eyes lit up when he found one. He threw out his arm and pointed his index finger right at Axel's head. " _OBJECTION!_ "

"Ugh... My goal is to get you to _shut up_..." Axel began with a tone conveying his exasperation. Eventually, though, he took a deep breath and sighed, placing a hand on his hip. "...but, I do know how much you love to talk, so, I'll humor you."

"Consider," Vexen began, "the niche scenario in which number thirteen and number fourteen become inseparable, exactly according to plan. However, due to unforeseen circumstances combined with the gradual deterioration of her mental condition, she begins to question the nature of her existence, which causes the friendship blossoming between the three of you to fall into peril. If you _spare_ me, then I can _maintain_ the fourteenth's emotional well-being, and make sure that everything goes exactly as planned, keeping you, as well as them, happy. And you _do_ want the thirteenth to be happy, right? After all, since your ultimate goal is to get into his pants, what you—"

Axel swung a punch in the air, and a small explosion centered near Vexen's face blasted the wounded scientist right in the kisser. He fell backward, screaming and clawing at the searing burns on his nose and cheeks.

"You had me," Axel began, "...and then, you lost me. I guess you didn't know just how much I _hate_ that rumor. I mean... you know, it's not like I _like_ him, or anything, jeez." He paused, then continued. "Besides... we're just Nobodies, who have no one to _be_ , yet we still ' _are_.' But now you can be _nothing_ instead of just being a nobody." He raised the index finger of his right hand, just above which a tiny orange flame danced. " _You're off the hook._ "

Vexen wanted to run, but he knew his legs wouldn't carry him, and Axel had already blocked the corridors of darkness. "No... please don't!" He fell backward into the metal gate. "I don't want to—!"

Axel snapped his fingers and said, "Bazinga."

Starting in the core of Vexen's chest, a bead of plasmatic energy ballooned outward, bursting first in rays through his skin. It immediately cooked his insides before tearing apart his limbs, vaporizing bone in an instant. There was a small scream at the start, but it was quickly snuffed out by the sound of the explosion. Before long it was too bright to look at. When Sora could finally reopen his eyes, all that was left was a small pile of ash and a bit of essence that was quickly floating away into the sky.

Axel was already at the pile scooping some of it into a pepper shaker.

Sora pointed at Axel, his hand shaking. "You vaporized him," he said, "and now you're going to vaporize me!" He put both hands on his cheeks and yelled, " _Oh my gooooooooooooooood!_ "

"Nah, don't worry. You have plot armor stronger than even I can melt," Axel said as he tucked the shaker into his pocket.

"Wh-... What _are_ you people?" Sora asked.

Axel thought about that. "Hmf," he said, shaking his head as a portal of darkness closed around him. "You know, I wonder about that myself." Then he was gone.

* * *

 _A little earlier..._

Larxene sat for a while, pouting, before she felt her phone buzz. She took it out and read the text from Axel: " _U rekt or no?"_

She texted: _"p rekt. orz"_

He replied: _"we're lit up top. in a bad way"_

Larxene rolled her eyes. _"saw that coming"_

Axel replied: _"mars asked me to eliminate the traitor. can u come help or is this my job"_

Larxene thought for a moment, then texted, _"dude im barely alive, you handle it. and i did the dishes this morning so like deal"_

Axel took a little longer to respond. _"why do i always get stuck with the icky jobs smh my head"_

Larxene didn't reply to that one, instead propping herself up against a column and moping, head between her knees. She considered how this new information would factor into her plans for taking over the organization. Now that she had a picture of what it was up against—namely, a six foot tall, cartoonishly indestructible teenager—maybe she'd be better off as far away from anything involving Kingdom Hearts as possible.

It wasn't long before her contemplation was interrupted by another text, this time from Marluxia. It read: _"Vexen has been eliminated~."_

She replied: _"lol rip"_

He texted back: _"~~Shall we let The Flurry of Dancing Flames in on our little plot~~?~"_

Larxene thought about this one, but eventually texted: _"dunno honestly. riku might mess you up. i got trashed"_

A minute later, Marluxia responded: _"You, subdued by a man~? Oh, now this is someone I want to meet in person~~~~"_

Larxene didn't feel like dignifying that with an actual response, so she just mashed the tilde key on her phone's keyboard until she had the text length maxed out, then sent it.

He replied a bit later, _"_ _Oh, am I annoying you_ ~ _?"_

She replied: _"like 4 srs"_

He replied, _"Oh well, take some time to grow a sense of humor; I can handle things up here. Just have to check to make sure Ramune is nice and cozy in her unlocked and unguarded prison chamber~."_

Larxene, meanwhile, had taken off the boot and sock covering her damaged foot, and grimaced at the damage. She texted back: _"as soon as i regrow my toes."_

During her brief moment of respite, Larxene was able to break out an emergency splint to set her smashed digits. Her calm moment only lasted until she got Marluxia's next text: " _Join us, no~?_ "


	5. Chapter 1-1-1-1-1

Chapter 1-1-1-1-1

Treason. Wait, That Was the Last Chapter. Dangit

Larxene and Marluxia had hooked the Organization's crystal ball to the game room's flat screen TV via an HDMI cable, and were watching the scene unfold while resting on fine leather couches. Larxene had her right leg and left arm in a cast, a bandage around her head, and a brace around her neck. Her and Marluxia were sipping on soda when Axel arrived.

"Nice work!" Larxene said, giving a thumbs up, seemingly forgetting that the arm she was using was supposed to be broken. "I say good riddance to that blabbermouth."

Axel grabbed a soda from the minifridge and sat down on an armchair perpendicular to the couch. He popped the cap and said, "Marluxia... You used Vexen to test Sora's strength, didn't you?"

"Not just Sora's," Larxene said. "It was yours, too." She took a sip and continued. "We weren't sure if you _actually_ had it in your bones to take out a fellow member." She shifted a bit in her seat. "Now... Normally it'd be my job to act all creepy and put a hand on your shoulder, but, well..." She motioned at her condition. "So that's why Marluxia is going to do it this time."

Marluxia nodded, standing up and moving over to Axel's seat, where he took a knee, then placed a hand on Axel's shoulder, making eye contact and giving him a knowing smile.

"Oh my god, dude," Axel said, shrugging him off and squeezing back into his chair.

"Well, now that we've seen your true colors... it's time to join up," Larxene said.

Axel, deapan, asked, "Does that mean I'm invited to the celebratory threesome?"

Marluxia looked at Larxene. She nodded, so he turned back and said, "Most definitely."

Axel nearly spit out his soda. In suppressing that urge, some of it went up his nose, and he turned away to cough.

"I can tell you're excited," Marluxia began, "but it scheduled for _after_ we take over the Organization."

"Which should be, like, total child's play with the three of us," Larxene said.

Axel, once he was finished coughing and wiping his nose, said, "So that's where Sora comes in."

Larxene's eyes widened, and she made an X with her arms in front of her head. "Woah, woah, woah. Uh, Axel, I know how you are, but, we're _not_ inviting Sora to the threesome."

Marluxia held up a hand. "Wait. I believe he was referring to how Sora is going to factor in to our _glorious_ coup."

"Yeah, uh, exactly," Axel said, looking a bit to the side.

Larxene rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, well, then of _course._ " She turned to Marluxia and added, "He wants to see Ramune, so why don't we just give him what he wants?"

Marluxia looked over his shoulder at a beanbag. Ramune was sunk so far down inside that only her legs and arms were visible, her fingers rapidly tapping on a small screen. "Rejoyce, Ramune," he said. "The time is near for you to meet the hero you've been longing for."

Axel glanced over to Ramune, and his eyes widened. "You gave her back my phone?!" He ran over and snatched it out of her hands, much to her chagrin. He grit his teeth when he saw how the home screen was totally full of new apps, and that he had dozens of notifications. "That's it, this thing's getting a new password."

"Ramune!" Larxene barked.

Ramune stood up from her beanbag in a panic, saluting and yelling, "Yes ma'am!"

"I'm warning you," Larxene said, wagging a finger at the younger girl. "You'd better not do _anything_ to betray Sora's feelings. Do you _understand_ me, little one?"

"I understand!" Ramune said, staring straight ahead.

"All you need do," Marluxia told her, "is layer Sora's memories, and bring his heart closer to you."

"Do well enough and we might even feed you tonight," Larxene said as she folded her legs and switched the TV to another channel. "Ugh, nothing's on. Do you wanna go swimming?"

"Are you sure, with your... physical condition?" Marluxia asked.

Larxene glanced at her casts. "Oh, right. Uh, sauna then?"

Marluxia nodded, and they both vanished into dark portals.

Axel sighed, barely registering that Larxene wanted to go swimming despite her numerous apparent injuries, and instead trying to figure out just how many hours he'd spend tapping the 'uninstall' button. He looked up when he heard Ramune say to no one in particular, "Sora..."

She had collapsed back into her beanbag, and was curled up into a little ball. "Even if you come for me... what then?"

* * *

Back in the underground, Lexeaus and Zexion had just finished watching _One Punch!_ when Zexion gasped.

Lexeaus asked, "What did you sense?"

Zexion thought for a moment, placing his hand over his mouth. "I sense... a disturbance..." He paused. "My god, I think we're finally back on screen!"

"Really?" Lexeaus asked. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Zexion said. "Oh, also, Vexen is dead."

"Dead?" Lexeaus replied.

"As they come," Zexion said.

"For real?" Lexeaus asked.

"As a doorknob," Zexion said.

"Guess Xigbar wins the deadpool, then," Lexeaus said with a huff. "I really thought it'd be Demyx."

"My money was on Axel, actually. He seems like the type to make one too many jokes about the Superior. Oh, speaking of, Axel was the one to strike Vexen down," Zexion said.

"You mean, kill him?" Lexeaus asked.

Zexion waved his hands at him in a shushing motion. "Shh-hh! We're not allowed to reference death, remember? Our ERSB rating is bad enough as it is."

Lexeaus shook his head as he fished for the last unpopped kernels of popcorn at the bottom of his bowl, crunching them between his teeth. "Well, however you call it, it's deplorable."

"Agents of the Organization, striking each other down..." Zexion lamented.

"It's because he tried to meddle in Marluxia's affairs," Lexeaus said. "Luckily, Sora is still under Ramune's control, I'm concerned, though, that he may escape it and... Uh, what was that term you used earlier?"

"'...Show us the true meaning of Christmas?'" Zexion, still mindful of ratings, suggested.

"Yeah, that," Lexeaus said. He folded his arms and closed his eyes, deep in thought. "The only way to ensure that the hero of light stays under control of the Organization... is to control the hero of the dark."

"Riku?" Zexion asked.

"What we must do," Lexeaus began, raising his hand before slowly closing it into a fist, "is obtain the seven chaos emeralds."

"Lexeaus, that's the wrong game," Zexion said.

"Oh, of course. My bad. Ahem." Lexeaus cleared his throat, then repeated the slow clenching motion of his fist. "What we must do... is obtain the dankness."

Zexion arched an eyebrow. "Um, you mean, the darkness?"

"That's what I said," Lexeaus said.

"So, Riku, then?" Zexion asked.

"Yes," Lexeaus said. "I saw Larxene limping away with our soda earlier. Judging by her injuries, she encountered Riku and they engaged hand-to-hand combat."

"Knowing Larxene, I imagine it was more like 'foot-to-crotch,' but yes," Zexion began, placing his hand on his chin. "I can still smell his scent, however, so she must have spared him. I can't imagine why."

"Hmm." Lexeaus considered this. "Do you think that maybe she relearned how to feel arousal?"

"Are you suggesting that Larxene _lusts_ for Riku?" Zexion asked.

"Well, there's no accounting for taste," Lexeaus said.

"True," Zexion said. "Well, which one of us should go persuade him?"

"It should be decided by official organization policy," Lexeaus said.

They looked at each other for a moment.

Then, Zexion raised his hand and said quickly, "Not-it."

Lexeaus sighed. "One of these days, Zexion, I will best you at that rite," Lexeaus said as he vanished into a portal of darkness.

* * *

Riku sighed as he _finally_ made it out of the last floor, which seemed to have been the most arduous one yet. "Freaking talking flowers," he mumbled. "That world wasn't _nearly_ as good as I remembered it." He sighed and flexed a bit before pulling a blue card out of his hammerspace and looking it over. "Just one left, huh?" he mumbled. "I wonder if there's a gym waiting for me on the other side. It's been half a day since I last worked out at least, and I can already feel the atrophy setting in."

That in mind, he stepped up to the next door, presented the card, and opened it the same way he had opened every other door before. It glowed brightly and opened, and he stepped inside... and out. There was no world; just the stairs leading to the next floor.

On the ground in front of him was a small note. He picked it up.

It read: _[World restricted to supporters.]_

"...Don't question it," Riku told himself, taking the stairs upward.

At the top of them he saw another black-clad man, this one stronger than the other one, with spiky red hair and a grimace on his face. He was holding what looked like the head of a giant adjustable wrench, but it was fashioned to be a sort of odd-looking hammer.

"If you're wondering about the last floor," he began, "we had been running over budget since Hollow Bastion."

"Oh, not you guys again," Riku said, shaking his head.

"Riku," Lexeaus began, "You've done well thus far. But to possess your powers, and yet fear the darkness... What a waste."

Riku used his hands to make _blah blah blah_ motions as Lexeaus spoke. Once he was finished, he said, "You know, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. If you're gonna try and persuade me about my secret affections for the darkness, you're going to have to do a little better than that."

"You're clearly capable of controlling the darkness," Lexeaus said. He made a wide, sweeping motion with his arm. "Cast away your useless fear. Open your heart, _embrace_ the darkness."

"And if I say no?" Riku asked.

"Then you lose both light and darkness... and disappear." At the last utterance, Lexeaus widened his stance, and a massive quantity of energy began to emanate from his body. The flow was so intense that Riku had to put a hand over his face. The outpouring tore Lexeaus's clothes from his body save his gray boxers, exposing his chiseled muscles and stoic frame.

Once the transformation was finished, Riku appraised his opponent. "Not bad," he said. "Could use a little more work on your deltoids though."

"Riku—!" Lexeaus yelled, pointing a finger at him. "I challenge you... to a work-out duel!"

At that, Riku only grinned. "Can't turn that one down." He strolled up next to Lexeaus and began a small set of warm-up stretches. "Standard rules?"

"As set by the Swole Federation of Muscle Enthusiasts. They updated it a couple of months ago to disallow planking, I heard," Lexeaus said as he rocked back and forth on his legs, stretching his hamstrings.

"They didn't disallow it; it's just no longer in regionals or nationals," Riku said. "Best two out of three. I'll let you choose the first event."

Lexeaus motioned to his weapon. "Let's see how many times you can bench my gigantic hammer."

Riku arched an eyebrow at the mild innuendo, then shrugged, walking over to lift it up by the handle. "Alright, well, if you say so- _oah!_ " He was surprised at the effort it took to get that thing off the ground. "Jeez, what is this thing made out of?"

"I don't know," Lexeaus said as he retrieved the bench, which was hidden away on the other side of the room. "I found it outside a manufacturing facility. I took it back home and Marluxia helped me paint it."

"You know, this thing doesn't exactly fit on a bar," Riku said as he got under the press.

"I'll spot you," Lexeaus said.

Riku was dubious, but went along with the plan. He positioned himself under the hammer and prepared his reps. It was very awkward to wield, and heavier than it looked. Riku estimated it at about a hundred and twenty-five kilos. He did his best despite the struggle. Laying on the bench for Riku was a natural, zen position, and it didn't take him long at all to reach a limit he was satisfied with.

"...Four hundred and eighteen..." he huffed, "... _nng_ Four hundred and ninteen... Four hundred and _nnh_ twenty." He let the hammer clatter to the ground next to him, wiped his brow, then looked up at Lexeaus. "I coulda done more, but I don't wanna be too tired in case you have something special planned for the next one, am I right?"

Lexeaus's jaw had all but hit the floor. When Riku spoke, he actually took one hand to press up on his chin so that his mouth could close, then he vigorously shook his head. After he was done recovering, he looked very sheepishly at Riku, tapping the tips of his index fingers together.

"Uhmm... Look, about all this..." he began. "I think that it might be best if I take off and fake my own death."

"Aww, man, don't be that way," Riku said, though in truth he didn't blame him. Throughout that entire set, his heart rate had only gone into the double digits once, and that was only because he had a moment of panic that he had forgot to zip up his fly.

"I've been kind of dubious about this whole Organization thing for a while now. I just wanted to help everyone get their hearts back, but every year that goal seems farther and farther away. It might be better if I went off, did some soul searching, maybe got a dog, and tried to find my heart on my own time, rather than relying on others," Lexeaus reasoned.

Riku was already walking toward the exit, and he waved his hand dismissively at Lexeaus. "Whatever, man, if you're gonna wuss out on me, just call it what it is."

Lexeaus's eye twitched. "What did you just call me?"

Still not turning around, Riku said louder, "I called you a little _B_ with a little _P_ , that's what."

Lexeaus was instantly behind Riku, swinging his gigantic hammer and yelling, _"WHAT THE HECK DID YOU JUST SAY ABOUT ME, YOU LITTLE BRAT?_ "

In one deft strike to the back of the head, Riku was out cold. Lexeaus then proceeded to scream at his limp body the rest of the Navy Seal copypasta—censored, of course, to be compatible with the Organization's Christian orthodoxy. Once he was finished, he caught his breath, wiped some saliva from his lips and chin, and said more calmly, "You were too much trouble." He lifted his arms to deliver the final blow—but, unbeknownst to him, he had taken too long, and given Riku time to recover from the blunt force trauma. Thanks to the way Riku had landed, Lexeaus also didn't notice the dark blue bandana materializing around his forehead.

He did notice, however, Riku getting up. It was the last thing he noticed, as a moment later his head was crushed between two mighty, meaty palms.

"Pssssh," Riku said as he watched Lexeaus's limp body crumble to dust. "Nothin' personnel... kid..."

* * *

" _I see you now... Clearly._ "

Riku jerked awake, flailing his arms as he found himself once again suspended in a void. Unlike earlier, however, this place was colder, and darker. Chill winds clawed at his abs, and the wind howled in the background. Riku righted himself and looked around, seeing nothing.

"Shoot, did I die?" he wondered aloud.

" _Riku,_ " the voice of Ansem spoke. " _I can, like... see your thingy._ "

Riku double-checked that he was clothed, and was relieved to see that he was. "Nice try, Ansem, but I haven't taken my pants off in years!"

" _Not_ there _, doofus; I meant your, like, heart, and stuff..._ " Ansem said.

Riku looked around to see if he could spot the Prince of Darkness, but he had hidden himself from view.

" _I like it when you, like, say my name,_ " Ansem said. " _If you'd, like, remember me, and let me into your heart and stuff, that would be pretty cool._ "

"Good luck getting through my pecs," Riku said before puffing out his chest and flexing each of them independently.

This only made Ansem giggle, a low, drawl-y noise that echoed through the pit of darkness. Riku looked around to see if he could pinpoint where the laugh was coming from, but it seemed to emanate from all directions.

" _You've been thinking about me, and stuff... haven't you?_ " Ansem asked.

"I guess you could say that," Riku said. "Just mulling over if I should crush your skull into a pancake or a crepe."

" _You're, like, afraid of the darkness I command, huh?_ " Ansem added. " _Good... The more you think of me, the closer I get to, like, coming back. And when I finally wake up, I'll... probably do some stuff. Yeah..._ "

Some of the purple plasmatic substance swirling around in the void coagulated and burned in a dark purple flame, cooking down to form the body of Ansem. He was just as feminine as his earlier appearance, but this time his coloration was significantly more grayscale, and his hair hung differently, a portion of it covering up his right eye.

He puckered his lips and did a little wave. "Like, _hiiiiiii~_ , or whatever." His tone, though duller than before, was somehow simultaneously whiny and pretentious. His expression, with his slightly flared nostrils and the downturned corners of his mouth, communicated an air of snobbishness and smug disinterest. "Wow, you've, like, been working out, huh...? I can't wait to, like... have non-stop access to that body," he said, licking his lips. He stretched out his arm, then slowly drifted toward Riku, wiggling his fingers as they grew closer and closer to Riku's abs. Riku was about to swat him away when he found that his arms and legs were restrained by coils of darkness.

Riku tried to wiggle away, but he wasn't moving as fast as Ansem. "Uh... uh..." he said as his heart rate steadily increased to the double digits. "We need an, uh, safe word!" he exclaimed.

Ansem paused at that. It was just enough time to allow a bright, shimmering light to appear in between them. "Riku, fight!" King Mickey said. "Don't let him win!"

"I'm, uh, in a bit of a bind," Riku said. A laugh track played in the background.

"Oh, right. Let me deus ex machina that for you," Mickey said. The ball of light shimmered, then burst, creating a bright flash. When Riku could see again, he found that his limbs were unbound, and that the King, albeit in his illusory form, was floating in front of him, blocking Ansem's hand.

"Your Mousiness!" Riku exclaimed.

Mickey just sighed.

Ansem frowned at the intrusion. "Ugh, like, what a total nark," he complained. "Whatever; this place was getting boring anyways."

That was the last thing Riku heard before his vision faded to white.

He awoke on the ground next to the lifting equipment. He got up and rubbed his head, and winced when he found his new goose egg. He frowned, then clenched his teeth and used his palm to press it back into his head.

That finished, he sat down on the bench to collect himself. "The King... He protected me," Riku mumbled. He looked up and said, "Yo, you still here? Where's my twenty bucks?!"

Riku heard no response, but felt a sudden warmth in his heart, so hot he wondered if he was getting heartburn. He stretched his arms and sighed, then got up and headed to the next floor.

* * *

Zexion was sitting in his armchair in the empty basement lounge and contemplating his mortality when Axel arrived.

"Lexeaus is gone as well," Zexion said. He was sitting cross-legged in his seat, and was resting his elbows on his knees. His fingers were interlocked, and on them he was resting his head.

"Not only Vexen and Lexeaus, but Larxene now, too," Axel said.

"Did Sora get her?" Zexion asked.

Axel shook his head. "Nah, she slipped in the sauna, hit her head. Really tragic, considering. If she didn't have so many casts on, she might have been able to break her fall instead of her neck." He folded his arms. "Shame about Lexeaus, though. Not to mention how Vexen turned traitor. I wonder who'll be next in line."

Zexion thought for a moment, and eventually said, "All I know is that I want off Castle Oblivion's wild ride."

Axel laughed. "Ditto." He stretched his arms above his head. "Well, now that I've taken a pounding from Sora and have been assumed dead, I imagine Marluxia is next," Axel said.

"Oh, you took a pounding, eh? Was Sora just tiding you over until you could see Roxas again?" Zexion asked.

Axel scowled at him for a moment, then relaxed his gaze and waved his arm dismissively. "You know what, I'm not even going to bother." He closed his eyes, then took a deep breath and said, "Nope, not gonna."

"Not going to what?" Zexion asked.

"Never mind," Axel said. "So, what about you? I thought you guys had plans for Riku."

"His presence has become slightly... problematic," Zexion began.

"Care to explain?" Axel asked.

Zexion thought for a moment. "Well, it all began when I first—" He stopped when he heard a faint noise coming from below. "Wait a minute, do you hear something?"

"It... definitely sounds familiar," Axel said.

They both realized it at the same time, and leapt out of the way toward the walls just in time to dodge the explosion of stone and plaster that accompanied Maleficent bursting through the ground, screaming in exactly the same pitch and volume as she had been before and sailing upward to pierce all the ceilings above her for at least the second time.

Axel took a moment, then stood up and dusted himself off. "We're, uh, in the basement, right?"

"I believe we're witnesses to the worlds' first case of perpetual motion," Zexion remarked. "Anyway, as I was saying—"

Axel held up a hand to interrupt him. "That was by Riku, yeah? I think Vexen told me about this earlier, come to think of it. Seeing as the Master of Muscle hasn't yet been subdued, it seems like you've got yourself quite a bind. So, what do you plan to do? I doubt a simple duel would work out in your favor."

"You know that is not how I do things," Zexion said. He thought for a moment, then said, "Tell me, did you obtain the data on Riku's home...?"

* * *

Riku was trotting up the stairs when the ground began to quake under his feet. He braced himself for a fight, but no one appeared; for a few moments, the whole castle shook. Paint chipped, sections of the ceiling fell onto the ground, and great cracks formed on the columns. Riku grabbed onto one of them anyway, wondering if the Organization was trying to collapse the castle on top of him as a last resort.

Eventually the tremors ceased, however, and as the dust settled, Riku looked up, only to blink away as some powdered structure fell on his face. He coughed a bit, "Akh, akh!" but eventually recovered. He had a sinking feeling.

"Why do I get the sense that the release of Kingdom Hearts III was just delayed again?" he asked aloud.

As if in response, a dark corridor opened in front of him at the top of the stairs to the next door. It was someone new, a man with dark hair and a large book—and you know what they say about men with large books.

"The keeper of this castle, Marluxia, has just been felled by the beyblade master," he announced.

Riku kept waving his hand in front of his face to disperse the dust. "Jeez," he said, "aren't we a little late in the story for exposition?"

"It matters not," Zexion said with a dramatic wave of his arm. "Tell me, does the term 'beyblade master' ring a bell inside that thick head of yours?"

Riku thought for a moment. "Hmm... aren't they those stupid toys Sora is always playing with?"

" _...incredibly deadly weapons,_ " Zexion corrected with a small, shocked smile.

"Oh, sweet, Sora's here? He owes me twenty bucks, too," Riku said.

"Indeed he is," Zexion said. "Want to meet him? But... can you face him?"

"What's that mean?" Riku asked.

"The world of darkness, and Ansem's shadow, still nest within your heart," Zexion began. "Do you plan to face Sora like that? Are you not ashamed?"

"Dude, when you're this swole, you stop worrying about what other people think about you, and only worry what your _muscles_ think about you," Riku said. He flexed his biceps, and asked it, "So, whaddaya think, guys?" He turned to his right and pantomimed in a small voice, " _You're super buff, Riku!_ " Then he turned to his left and feigned it saying, " _You're the buffest, Riku!_ "

Zexion frowned, but continued anyway. "Sora's fate is to battle the darkness. He must oppose _anyone_ who hosts the dark—in other words, you."

"Gonna need a fact check on that one," Riku said. "I mean, have you seen the freaks he hangs out with? They're Lovecraftian."

"If you don't _believe_ the words I say," Zexion said, taking a card out of his pocket and throwing it at Riku, "then you had best see the truth with your own eyes."

Riku took the card and looked at it. He nodded a bit and said, "Yeah, not bad. So you're taking me home, then?"

"Indeed," Zexion said as a portal of darkness opened and engulfed him. "I'm taking you... to where your heart is."


	6. Chapter 1-1-1-1-1-1

Chapter 1-1-1-1-1-1

The Part of the Story Just Before the Last Part of the Story

It wasn't long before Riku found himself standing on the sandy shores of the Destiny Islands. He had quite literally dropped in; rather than entering the world nonchalantly through an unrelated door or pushing through bushes or drapes, he had been unceremoniously dumped onto a horizontally growing tree. It groaned under his weight, but somehow held, and after Riku took some time to orient himself, he leaned back against it, his boots in the pale white sand of his home world. The sun was warm on his back, and the ocean breeze smelled of salt and seaweed.

"Never thought I'd actually miss that piano theme," he said to himself with a nostalgic smile. "It's so freaking corny. I remember when I couldn't wait to get off this rock. Now, though, it's almost relieving to be back." He patted the back of the tree trunk. "Heck, I remember when this tree was still growing right, before I tried to sit on it after a workout."

There was some commotion over to his right, and he looked over only to bite his lip. _Crap, am I supposed to know who those side characters are?_

They waved him over anyway. Riku tried to look enthusiastic as he waved back, then he ran over, trying to step on the sand so that none of it would get inside his boots, which was difficult, as he sank in almost up to his ankles with every step.

"Hey...! You... guys!" he said with an awkward smile as he walked up to them. There were two boys, one older than the other, and a girl. They were all smiling just as they had been before, but they didn't say a word. "What's up? Haven't seen all of you in a little while. Man, I guess you're probably wondering where I've been, right?"

They didn't seem to react.

Riku cracked his knuckles. "Man, have I got the story for you guys. It all started, I dunno, a year ago, when—"

He stopped when he realized that they were vanishing into small columns of light, which faded out of existence.

Riku scratched the back of his head. "Huh, I didn't think I was _that_ boring to talk to," he mumbled. "No wonder I don't remember them. They must have been from some overrated piece of crap game series anyway."

Not knowing where else to go, Riku trotted back over to the place where he'd started, seeing if he there were any remaining clues. On the way back over the bridge to the small artificial hill where he'd dropped in, he sensed someone behind him, and turned around to see Kairi. He waved and gave her a big smile.

"Hey, Kairi!" he said, turning to the side so that he could flex all four of his limbs at once in demonstration. "Like it? I know I'm probably a little more _mature_ -looking than you expected, but don't worry; it's still the same, new-and-improved Riku," he added as he jiggled his pecs.

Kairi simply vanished the same way the other kids had.

Riku sighed and folded his massive arms, pursing his lips. "Man..."

"My God, you're like a peacock," Zexion said from behind him.

"I do not have a _pea cock,_ " Riku shot back at him. He added with a smaller voice, "Size doesn't matter anyway, y'know."

"I'm guessing you must compensate _somehow_ ," Zexion said.

Riku snapped his fingers and gave him a thumbs up. "I do push-ups with my _tongue_."

Zexion played with a bit of his hair as he leaned against a nearby palm. "Odd, though, how you thought she'd respond to your advances. We're still in a world of your memories, you know, and I doubt that Kairi ever reciprocated your interest."

"I'm still testing the waters," Riku said confidently. "Even if she never comes around, I still have my custom dakimakura."

Zexion's brow furrowed a bit as he wondered how he could possibly get inside Riku's head. "So tell me, Riku; if you care about Kairi so much, why did you risk her life, and the lives of everyone in this world, just for, quite literally, _material gains?_ "

That gave Riku pause. "I mean, I was an angsty teen."

"Oh, it was a phase, was it?" Zexion said. "Was kidnapping part of that phase? Giving up your body and thereby forcing your friend to give up his? Having the heart of your love interest ripped from her body?" He folded his arms. "If your motivation for those actions was the pursuit of _mass_ , then how is the impartial observer supposed to believe that you've ever grown out of those destructive tendencies?"

"Well, I'll be the first to admit I have some growing to do," Riku pointed out.

" _You destroyed your home!"_ Zexion yelled, and with a wave of his arm, tremors shook the island, and cracks opened up in the earth. The peaceful blue skies fell away like tissue paper, revealing a black, stormy backdrop. Riku stumbled a bit as the small hill was ripped out of the ground, and watched as the rest of the Islands sank into a sea of darkness. A tornado of debris flowed cylindrically around the hovering rock, all being lifted up into a giant red heart of shimmering dark energy up above. Even as the howling winds and rain battered him, though, all Riku did was stand up, clench his fists, and square up against Zexion.

"Real honorable fighting strategy." He glowered. "Bringing up the past, trying to trigger someone's PTSD or whatever."

"All of the islands you grew up on were sundered, scattered. Many hearts were forever lost to the darkness," Zexion said, "because of what _you_ did! You hated being an islander, so you opened the door to darkness and destroyed the islands! It was _you!_ " He took a breath. "You were pulled into the darkness then, and now you _belong_ to the darkness."

"Yeah, just let me know when I should start taking you seriously," Riku said.

Zexion smirked. "I may be a bookworm, but I'm not only my words. Feast your eyes," he said as he flipped open his kekronomicon to a page somewhere in the middle, "on what you _really_ are."

Nothing happened for a few moments, giving Riku time to crack his knuckles. He arched an eyebrow, however, when he heard the same noise from just a few feet behind him. He turned around to see his shadow come to lift right before his eyes, stepping out of the ground and becoming its own dark entity.

"Heck yea, even my shadow is badass," Riku said.

"Oh, we're not done yet," Zexion said as he licked the tip of his glove and turned a few pages more. "Its power is sufficient, but its appearance needs a small tweak to measure up to your own."

Riku watched as his buff shadow shuddered and collapsed to its knees. Its limbs shrank down, and its head seemed to compact in on itself. Its bones cracked and contorted, muscles withering, hair thinning, skin wrinkly, its palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy; there's vomit on his sweater already—mom's spaghetti. After the transformation was complete, the shadow looked like a leathery old man who would have a stroke if he was looked at the wrong way.

"Behold," Zexion declared, pointing at his creation, "you, in the future!"

"Is that me at a hundred?" Riku asked.

"No, it's you at thirty," Zexion said. "Now, fight!"

"You sure you thought this through?" Riku asked, brandishing his muscles. Zexion didn't answer him. The old man didn't move, either. Riku walked up to him and waved a giant hand in front of his face, but the shadow just stood there, looking forward absently with sad, yellow eyes. Riku poked him. He disintegrated into a tar-like dust which scattered in the wind, sticking to Riku's chest.

"...Vaguely foreboding," he remarked. "Yo, I'm no Moogle; why am I getting ghostly visits?"

He dusted himself off and looked around for Zexion, but he seemed to have vanished. Instead, Sora was standing on the end of the island. Instead of asking the logical question, which was something to the tune of, _How did my best friend get onto an island that's floating up into the maw of the void?_ Riku instead put on a big smile and ran over to greet his pal. "Hey, Sora!"

He was understandably surprised when said friend of many years pulled out his beyblade, wound it up, and shot it directly at his chest. Riku lurched, ducking backward to avoid the blow, and took a leap back as the top returned to Sora. "Sora, it's—" He interrupted his plea when he saw the glowing yellow top whizzing directly at his chest. He needed to use both of his hands to stop it, and sparks flew out as it grinded against the tough flesh of his callused hands.

"Hey, Sora, if you wanted to train so bad, can we do it on an island that isn't imminently about to fall into the Realm of Darkness?" Riku proposed.

"Not likely," Sora said. He pulled his beyblade back telekinetically, then wound it up again and shot it at Riku's chest. "I have plans."

"Oh, really? What are— _ngh!_ " Riku yelled as Sora maneuvered his top along Riku's arm and under his the curve of his bicep, pegging him right in the chest. Riku held his ground, but was pushed backward a few meters, and had to brush himself off where his skin had grown faintly red.

"How can the light hurt you, Riku?" Sora asked. "I thought you said you had taken your meds!"

"I have a lot of meds, okay?" Riku said. He widened his stance, smelling something fishy going on.

"Those meds were to keep you from being a pawn of the darkness," Sora said. He pulled out a little bottle of pills from his hammerspace and pointed to the label. "You see? Right here: _Anti-Dark._ I told you, you need to take one a day, or else you'll become all, you know... evil!"

Riku furrowed his brow. Did that medicine even exist? To be sure, usually it was Sora he trusted with the basic things, like scheduling, assigning chores, managing prescriptions... He reached into his own hammerspace and fiddled around inside, eventually pulling out a bottle of the same name. It had a dark purple label, and a heartless insignia under the universal no symbol. It read: _Treats depressive, aggressive, obsessive, regressive, expressive and digressive symptoms in patients. Take daily to block corrupting influences. Active ingredient: Placebiate - 5 milligrams. Caution: Does not prevent the influence of peer pressure. Side effects include monologuing, self-righteous behavior, and plot armor growth._

"Aw, shoot, Sora. My memory isn't what it used to be. I'll pop one of these bad boys right now." He twisted open the cap, pushed a sausage finger down inside and fished around, but the bottle was empty.

Sora sighed and shook his head. " _Please_ tell me you didn't sell it all for Buff-Up again."

Riku attempted a reassuring smile and gave a dismissive wave of his arm. "C'mon, man, you know I'm off that stuff. I'm all natural! ...With a few supplements."

"Then where did it all _go_ , Riku?" Sora demanded.

Riku bit his lip. He didn't remember anything well enough to give a proper answer.

Sora just gave him a disappointed glare. "That's what I thought. Pretty soon, you'll just be a pawn of the darkness. No... No, you've been a pawn of the darkness for a long time, huh?"

"It's not like that!" Riku yelled.

"So be it," Sora said. His beyblade winder made a whirring sound; it was fully charged. Sora fired it, and Riku raised his arms to deflect, but instead of going straight at him, it dropped in front of Sora and spun in front of him. Quickly, it began to glow, brighter and brighter until Riku couldn't look at it anymore. Then, brighter still until he was totally blind.

"Riku... it's time for you to face the light!"

* * *

For the first time since leaving the Islands, Riku felt peaceful.

He was falling. Not in a bad way, though. Not this time. It was warm, where he was. The void, instead of gray, or black, was a pleasant blue-green, bathed in the light. He felt as though he was a tiny speck sinking in the water of a warm bath. It was a weightless sensation, drifting along with the current, and he felt as though he was being cleansed and rejuvenated.

 _Man..._ he thought to himself. _Why do I always feel as though I'm looking upward in these dreams, even when there's no defined perspective? Like, what gives?_

He tried to move his arms, and failed, not from lack of ability, but rather, lack of effort. He felt as though he was wrapped in warm blankets in the early morning of a Saturday, far too pleasantly comfortable to even consider getting up.

 _This is... nice, though,_ he thought. _Fading away into the light... it doesn't seem so bad. I mean, I won't have to deal with people attacking me anymore, at least. And I'll peak in a couple years anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to quit while I'm ahead... yeah. I think I'm okay with this._

He closed his eyes and exhaled as his essence began to dissipate into the ether.

"You won't fade."

His eyes snapped open. "Oh, _c'mon_."

"You _can't_ fade. There's no power that can defeat you—not the light, not the dark." It was Kairi's voice. Even if Riku couldn't see her, he could picture her saying those words.

"Look, I know the whole world depends on me and stuff, but can you all handle my _not_ being the most powerful human being the world has ever known for five freakin' minutes?" Riku asked.

"You're still not as strong as you could be," Kairi said.

"...I'm listening," Riku said, folding his arms.

"If you stop running from the light... and stop fearing the darkness," Kairi began, " _both_ will make you stronger."

"I mean, it's not like I haven't tried both. Darkness turned me into a puppet, and as for the light, well... I don't really have any interest in children's toys, let's say," Riku explained.

"Think of it like this," Kairi began. "Back then, it was like you were trying to lift a dumbbell by the end, rather than the handle. It's a lot more difficult that way, so you didn't get the desired results. That's kind of like how you've been using the light and the darkness. There's a lot of room for improvement."

Riku mulled this over. "You think so?"

"Yeah," Kairi said. "The darkness inside your heart... it's vast, and it's deep. Like, seriously, holy crap; everyone is super surprised you're not a Heartless slash Nobody right now." She cleared her throat. "Ahem, anyway. If you can stare into your darkness, and not flinch, or look away... you won't be afraid of anything ever again."

Riku arched an eyebrow. "Psh, what do you think I am, some kind of wuss?"

Kairi giggled. "That darkness _includes_ Ansem, you know. In all his glory. Don't try to act like you haven't been pushing that away."

"How else am I _supposed_ to respond?" Riku fumed.

"Look. If you _want_ to be the strongest man, stronger than you've ever been, you'll have to come to terms with Ansem. One way, or another. For now, though, all you can do is know that the darkness is there, in your heart. If you can do that—acknowledge it, but never giving in—you will gain strength, the kind that's like any other. You'll be able to escape the deepest darkness, and you'll be able to see through the brightest light."

Riku was skeptical. "I really hope you're not scamming me on this like Maleficent did."

Kairi sighed. "Look, I'm your childhood crush or something, right? Just think of my tits and _trust me on this one._ "

Riku thought for a moment, then gave a thumbs up. "We're both underage, so it's alright."

"Now follow the darkness," Kairi said. "It'll show you the way to your friends."

"Dope," Riku said. He balled up both fists. "Alright, let's try this again, the right way. With my strength..." He flexed all his muscles simultaneously—yes, _all_ of them—and the light enveloping him began to recede, recoiling from his presence as his aura began to emanate in all directions. His veins bulged. Dark purple patches appeared on his skin, though they vanished almost as quickly as they came. He closed his eyes, then opened them, and took a deep breath.

" _My dark strength._ "

A shudder rippled through the world of light, electricity crackling around Riku. Bolts of purple lightning arced through the sky as the peace was disturbed, and Riku saw ripples in the fabric of reality. _It's an illusion!_ He grinned and raced his fingers through the air, feeling it shudder and give way. His muscles bulged out as he continued to accrue more and more dark energy, though this time, instead of being thrust upon him from without, he was summoning it from within.

" _Darkness!_ " he shouted, raising an arm toward the sky. A dark blue bandana appeared around his forehead. He reached around the back of his head to make sure the knot was tight, then scraped his arm in a wide arc in front of him. When he observed the pattern of disturbance his blow created, which was more tactile than visual, he realized that whoever was maintaining the illusion was standing right behind him.

He didn't take long to make a decision. He turned around and reached for the perpetrator's neck. Once he had it in his grasp, he slammed his opponent into the ground. The illusion faded, and it was revealed to be Sora—but Riku knew this was a lie.

"Kim... possible," Sora sputtered, but it wasn't his voice; it was Zexion's. The last pieces of the illusion faded away and revealed him fully.

Zexion placed his palm on the ground and summoned a corridor of darkness, melting into the floor and reappearing a short distance away. Riku let him escape, for the time being, and gave him time to catch his breath.

"How is it that you found me," Zexion began, one hand around his neck, "when you were _there_ , in the light?"

"Nothing fancy, you just smell," Riku said. "Ever heard of soap?"

"I shower twice daily, thank you very much," Zexion said. "We only get one uniform, though. I swear, if this thing ends up getting me killed, I am going to issue a _firm_ _complaint._ "

"Yeah, you do that," Riku said, cracking his knuckles.

"This is absurd," Zexion muttered as he lifted up his kekronomicon. "But first, I will make you see... that your hopes are nothing, nothing but a mere—!"

He stopped. Riku wasn't in front of him anymore. Neither was anything. He was looking up at the sky. Well, what was left of it, anyway. Something hurt in his chest. Oh, yeah. It took Zexion about that long to realize that he had been knocked down into the dirt, shattering a couple of his ribs and sending him sliding into a rock face. He hit his head so hard that his vision was black for a few moments. When he did come to, he did his best to claw himself upright, holding his head and coughing.

Riku was standing there in front of him, looking unimpressed. "Look, did you think you were the final boss or something? Because you are weak with a capital K."

Zexion smiled a bit to himself, wondering if this was how it would all end. "Haha... Hahahahahhh." A dribble of essence ran down from each nostril over his lips. "After... all your protests. Ugh..." He leaned against a nearby palm tree, feeling as though he was about to vomit, but it didn't come. "You're still like us... on the side of darkness."

Riku scoffed. "What are you, five? Life is a little more complicated than _us_ versus _them_. All that matters is that I know who _I_ am."

"When did that happen?" Zexion asked. "You were... akh, akh... You were always _terrified_ of the dark before."

Riku exhaled and closed his eyes, shaking his head in pity. Without his illusion to protect him, Zexion was powerless compared to Riku darkness or not. Riku felt a measure of pity for him. So instead of pummeling him into the dirt until his body was uniformly distributed across the surface of the island, he instead walked up and grabbed him by that funny-looking chain near the top of his uniform and lifted him off the ground. "I'm not here to talk philosophy with you. I've got bigger fish to fry. Just get out of here and let me do what I need to do."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm gone," Zexion said. But, after a few moments passed, nothing happened. Zexion began to look a bit nervous, and he mumbled under his breath, " _Aaaany_ minute now."

Riku's brow furrowed. "Well?" he asked, shaking Zexion a bit.

Just then, something in Zexion's uniform went click, and the robe burst into a column of flame so quickly that even Riku was startled. He jumped back, and heard Zexion screaming from somewhere inside the inferno. When the column of flame was gone, he had vanished.

Riku sat there for a few moments, his hand over his mouth. Finally he came to his senses and said to no one in particular, "Yo, that was metal as hell."

* * *

Zexion had not perished in that dazzling display of self-sacrifice; in fact, he had managed to flee back to the reading room of the basement, where it had all begun. He was certainly no better off after his stunt, however. He assumed that the explosion would have been much more dramatic. It was to the contrary, however, as Riku hadn't been harmed in the least, and now Zexion was having trouble keeping himself together in the very literal sense. Soon after arriving, he collapsed, leaning against a wall and trying to catch his breath. He hurt everywhere.

"What _is_ he?" he wondered aloud. "No one has ever _done_ that. No one has _ever_ done that in the _history_ of _Dota!_ "

He heard a dark corridor open behind him. He turned around and gasped in panic when he saw Riku, with Axel standing behind him. _Flashbacks already?!_ He tried to back up further and squeeze himself up against the wall, but after a moment or so he realized who it really was.

"Oh... Oh, yes. The replica, of course." He sighed and relaxed a bit. "We can use _this_ Riku to defeat the _real_ one." It took another moment for his concussed mind to turn the gears around. "But... I thought you texted me that he wasn't getting any more screentime...?"

Axel didn't say anything. He grinned a bit, pulled out his phone, and began to play a slowed-down version of the _Jaws_ theme.

"Wouldn't you like to be real?" he asked the replica.

"Yes, daddy," Fake-Riku said. Its eyes were glazed over and vacant.

"Good," Axel said, giving Fake-Riku a pat on the shoulder. "All you need is the kind of power that the real Riku doesn't have. If you can get that, you can be a new person—not Riku, nor anybody else. You won't just be a copy of someone; you will be unique, your _own_ self."

"And then will I get the cummies?" Fake-Riku asked.

"More than you could ever dream of," Axel promised.

Zexion, meanwhile, was about to have a stroke from just how terrifying he found his new situation. He didn't have enough strength left to stand, let alone summon a corridor of darkness. If he had known this is what he was returning to, he would have rather perished on the Islands.

"Axel! What are you _saying_ to him?!" Zexion shouted.

"You know," Axel told Fake-Riku, motioning toward Zexion, "he's as good a place to start as any."

"You can't do th—" Zexion soon found Fake-Riku's sweaty palms wrapped firmly around his neck. His limp body was lifted into the air. As he was strangled, Zexion could do little more than weakly raise his hands to claw at the replica's fingers.

" _Cummies,_ " Fake-Riku murmured, a far-away stare in his eyes as he watched the life leave Zexion's body. Once he was gone, he absorbed the recoverable essence before discarding the empty uniform. His body glowed with an eerie purple aura.

"So it turns out I _can_ be a vindictive asshole; who knew?" Axel said as he took a pen crossed another name off a list titled 'people who've insinuated that I like men.'

* * *

After the memories of the Islands faded and peeled away from the walls, Riku found he could advance to the next floor, and so he did. However, his advance was accompanied by the eerie sensation that he was being watched from all sides, within and without. He shivered a bit, trying to shake it off. Then he heard a voice.

 _Riku... Riku..._

"Ugh... Five more minutes, mom. I'm having a dream where I'm, like, even more badass than usual," Riku said, waving his arm at the air. Everything was suddenly so bright, and he had to squint a bit.

 _Uhm, I'm not your mom, you know..._

"Well who are you, then? And why do your sentences always trail off?" Riku asked aloud.

 _Like, uh, just look inside your heart, doofus... You'll find my fingerprints, like... All over it. It's springy... Like a stress ball. Squish, squish..._

Riku coughed as he felt his insides twisted. The sensation was so intensely unpleasant that he wanted to vomit. Before long he was on his knees.

 _You've, like, totally forgot to update your antivirus, sooo... I'm all inside you and stuff. Oh, and the darkness, too. Hah... thanks._

Riku banged his fist on the ground with enough force to open up a fissure from where he was standing to the other end of the hall. He could hardly breathe, but he managed the words,"Get... out...!"

 _Rude... I just got here. Like, besides... Your heart will be, like, an all-consuming darkness soon anyway... And then we'll be, like, roommates... it's gonna be lit._

"I'm... I'm not gonna let you in," Riku said, slamming his fist into his chest a couple times, thinking he could physically jostle Ansem out. Needless to say, it was a painfully unproductive method of expulsion.

 _I mean... you already have. Here, I'll show you... hehe. Just lemme..._

Riku suddenly relinquished control of his arms and legs, and he rose up into a T-stance with his muscles fully engaged. "Can't move!" he gasped.

 _I think I know something fun to do... Let me put on a song._

Riku's head was suddenly filled with the Chicken Dance song. Tears immediately welled to his eyes as he remembered all the most embarrassing moments of his childhood. "Oh _God._ "

Then, against his will, his limbs began to move, repeating the moves of that infamous jig, his unnaturally large arms folding painfully to form chicken-wings which, as he waved them around, shattered every column he danced near. But not only that, at the end of every measure, Ansem forced him to dab. It was the ultimate torture.

"Make it stop make it stop make it stoooooop," Riku groaned. His glutes felt as though they were burning hot enough to melt steel beams, and they probably were.

This continued for the better portion of an hour.

Eventually, Ansem spoke up again. _The deeper the darkness runs, like... the more of your dirty little secrets I found out. It's, like, super neat... haha. You're a real dumbass. Now you look it, too. Controlling you is, like, so easy... You even have a USB port for my Xbox controller._

" _Xbox?_ Oh man, I thought you were evil before," Riku yelled over the music in his head.

 _Uhm, did I give you, like, permission to speak?_ Riku felt his jaw clench up, grinding his teeth together. _Here, let me pop those eardrums for you, too._ Ansem cranked up the volume of the song, as well as the tempo, and as the tempo increased so did the speed of Riku's dancing and dabbing. He was kicking his legs straight through the walls and his muscles felt as though they were melting like warm ice cream.

Just then, a little ball of light wormed its way into Riku's chest.

 _Ugh, nark alert! Total freaking nark. Narky narky nark-nark._

Riku slowly regained control of his limbs and collapsed onto the ground chest-first, wheezing like he had just sprinted a marathon.

"Whew," Mickey said, sitting on top of Riku's back with his legs crossed. "Turns out all that speeding was worth it. Any slower and you woulda been a puddle by the time I got here."

"Ugghghghghhhh," Riku grunted, a combination of blood and saliva flowing out of his mouth like a small fountain.

"Aw, sorry I couldn't come here sooner, Riku," Mickey said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "It turns out that insurance agencies aren't any better in fantasy worlds than they are in the real one! Who woulda thunk it?"

Riku tried his best to speak. "Ymm... Yuh... Your Mousineshh..."

"Oh, Riku, I'm sure you'll get it someday," Mickey said, shaking his spherical head.

"You... came all this way," Riku began. It took some effort, but he managed to twist one of his hands into a thumbs-up. "Thanks... bro."

"I made a promise that I'd find a way, and a promise is a promise," Mickey said. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and placed it in Riku's back pocket. "And, here's the munny I owe ya."

"It's nice to have company, for once," Riku said, his muscles rapidly regenerating, though he still couldn't sit up. "How'd you get here, though? I didn't think Moogle Maps covered this place yet."

"I got a golden ticket given! Come take a look," Mickey said, climbing down off of Riku and fishing out of his pocket a golden ticket made out of tinfoil.

As he showed it to Riku, it glowed and transformed into a bright blue card, same as all the others, with an unfamiliar town on the front.

"Huh," Mickey said as they both stared at it. "Weird. Well, anyway, all I know is that I needed a way out of the Realm of Darkness, and then suddenly that ticket appeared right in front of me! When I picked it up, I could see your heart beyond the darkness. That's what let me find you!"

Riku arched an eyebrow at him. "Is your entire character arc just one big deus ex?"

"Look, I didn't ask for this," Mickey replied. "I guess the ticket thought its place was to be with you." He placed the card between the two fingers Riku was able to move.

"Huh... Maybe you're right," Riku said. He tried to move his other limbs, but they were stubbornly put. He exhaled. "Look, Mickey, I guess I'm going to be here for a while, so if you want to explain anything to me about _anything_ , now'd be a good time." He waited for a moment. "Mickey?"

He twisted his neck to look around, but Mickey was nowhere to be seen. Pursing his lips at the ongoing lack of explanation, he picked himself up, hobbled over to the door, and used the new card to open it.

* * *

On the other side was an empty town. The sun hung still in the dry, dusty air. Despite its apparent lack of population, the town seemed well-kept; there was no chipped paint or knocked-over garbage bins to suggest that it had been abandoned. It was quiet, eerily so, and yet felt strangely homelike. A crow cawed from somewhere out of sight.

"Reminds me of Sora's birthday parties," Riku mumbled to himself. He folded his arms and thought for a moment. "Now, I know my memory isn't the greatest, but this place _definitely_ feels new." He heard footsteps behind himself and turned around to see Ansem.

" _Heeeey,_ " said the Prince of Darkness, holding a few bags over his one arm. "You know, for a small town, the style here is totally chic. I picked out some pants that'll look _great_ on you when I, like, defeat you and stuff."

Riku raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and when'll that be?"

He shrugged. "It's too bad—I just had a pedicure, and all—but really I've been putting this off too long. You're all on your own, no one to help you, I've got you right where I want you, et cetera et cetera." He flexed his slender fingers and batted a bit of hair from in front of his eyes. "So, let's go, _Riku._ And let's make sure we both _finish_ this time... You know, what we started."

Riku didn't react, his beefy arms still folded, eyes closed. Eventually, he threw up his arms and shrugged.

Ansem grinned. "Oh? Giving up? Surrendering to your fate? Good, I love it when they're..." He paused to lick his lips. " _Submissive._ "

Riku laughed. "Man, I don't know what Ansem _you're_ trying to imitate, but after seeing the _true_ Ansem up close again, you're about as realistic as a cardboard cutout." His smile hardened. "So drop the act."

"Ooh, jeez, edgy," Ansem said. "Buff Riku? More like _Bluff Riku._ "

"That pun makes you sound like a fifty year old man," Riku said, "and even if you _hadn't_ made it, let's get real. What's left of Ansem lodged inside my heart is an extension of _me_. My darkness, my fears, my insecurity." He tugged on his gloves a bit. "The Ansem in my heart is a lot fouler than anything that... Well, that exists in the real world. It's my own personal hell. As bad as you are, there's no way you compare.

"Even when we fought, I never felt like I was being really threatened—just toyed with. You're even the one that taught me how to control Ansem's powers so that I could beat the bad guys up and look awesome doing it. Even if the way you taught me was pretty... molest-y." He paused. "In fact, since you're the same one that's been guiding me from the start, I gotta imagine that you're doing it for a reason. So, since we're obviously on the same side—cut the act."

Ansem looked at him for a while, then shrugged with an indifferent sort of expression. He shimmered a bit before the illusion of his appearance shattered, revealing a man below who was practically mummified in red cloth. What little skin remained visible was a similar tone to Ansem's. Above the cloth was a suit not unlike Ansem's, and around his neck hung a stylish red cape. There were two belts clasped along his head for some reason. "You thought it was Ansem, but it was me, _DiZ!_ "

Riku gaped. "You _are_ a fifty-year-old man!"

DiZ coughed. "Forty-nine." His voice was low and smooth, like rich hot cocoa.

"Who are you? And how long— _how_ have you been watching me?" Riku demanded.

DiZ raised a finger to his lips.

Riku shook a giant fist at him. "Oh, don't give me that crap."

DiZ raised up his hands defensively. "Can't a man have a hobby?"

"Not if that hobby is cross-dressing and sexually harassing straight—once again, _straight_ — _underage_ men!" Riku exclaimed.

"Don't kinkshame," DiZ said.

"You better bet your _ass_ I'm kinkshaming," Riku said, "but whatever. What do you even _want_ from me, then? And for real. _No_ innuendos," he warned.

"...For you to choose," DiZ said. He opened held out his left fist, then opened it to reveal a little white pill. "On one hand, you are a bastion of the light, capable of guiding all the worlds on a path toward the truth." He held out his right hand; resting in that palm was a little blue pill. "On the other, you are a bulwark of darkness, and can use its power without falling under its influence. You are a unique entity, straddling the line between. You exist in the twilight." He paused. "You are to meet Ramune, then choose."

Riku gave DiZ a skeptical look. He pointed to each of his hands sequentially and said, "Okay, first of all, I'm pretty sure that first one is a roofie, and the other is viagra. Second of all, isn't Ramune a kind of soda?"

"You will know soon," DiZ said.

He began to shimmer, and Riku barely managed to yell out "No-no-no–!" before he had collected his entire being into a ball of light and vanished with his newly bought clothes.

"Come _on_ ," Riku said, kicking the dirt at the side of the road. With nothing else to do, he decided he may as well explore the town.


	7. Chapter 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Chapter 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

The End of Endings

Before long Riku had found the courtyard of an old, decrepit mansion, the only thing in this whole town that looked worn down or overgrown. There was a giant stone wall bordering the inner courtyard, and at the back of the courtyard was the door to the mansion's lobby. He walked up to the gate, which looked rusty enough to crumble to dust in his fingers, and shook it a bit, but it didn't budge. He cupped his palms to his mouth and yelled, " _Hey! Anyone home?_ " The dozens of times he had asked that question had all so far gone unanswered, but Riku was diligent enough to check anyway. Of course, no one replied, and Riku paused at this point to fold his arms in thought, wondering if he was even on the right track.

Just then, someone yelled from behind him, _"Stop!"_

Riku whipped around, immediately ready for combat. It was the replica.

Fake-Riku had certainly seen better days. His upper body was covered in bruises and welts, giving in some cases entire muscle groups a bluish-purple tint. His back was covered in scar tissue and partially-healed burns. His shorts, while not so tattered as to not cover the most important areas, had gaping holes in the thighs. His silver hair was mostly shaved off, and unevenly so; what little full-length hair remained was pulled tight near his right temple in a haphazard ponytail, bound by his bandana, which was tied in a neat little bow. Most notable, though, was his expression. One of his eyes was lazy, glazed over and generally useless, while the other was razor-sharp in its focus, twitching with maniacal energy.

The replica held up a finger. "...Hammer time."

Real-Riku watched as Fake-Riku awkwardly shimmied to the side, dancing to some hidden, strangely uneven beat, mumbling the tune of an outdated pop culture reference.

"Yo, uh, you all right there friend-o?" Real-Riku asked.

Fake-Riku stopped, flumping onto the ground and rolling over to Real-Riku before stopping at his feet, looking up at him. " _Hey._ " Then he rolled back to where he was before, stood up, and hobbled over, pointing at Real-Riku with a jittering arm. "I remember _you_. You're _me._ Riku."

Real-Riku didn't feel like he really wanted to engage in this conversation. "Err... Sure. Whatever you say."

Fake-Riku smacked his palm to face so hard that, when he removed it, a red impression was left behind. "Ohh, I _forgot._ You're not _Riku,_ you're your own original character, _Bliku_."

Real-Riku folded his arms. "Okay, like, dude. Replica. I really hope you aren't pretending to be the boss of this world. 'Cause, I mean, I don't exactly _want_ to beat you up... uh, any more than you already are."

Fake-Riku frowned, then limped toward Real-Riku, steadily getting more and more in his face. "I don't think you understand. I'm not a replica. I'm the _actual_ Riku, _trapped in a shitty fanfiction._ "

Real-Riku rolled up his nonexistent sleeves. "Alright, that does it." He wound up a punch, and as he threw it, yelled, "RIKU... PUNCH!"

Fake-Riku's eyes flashed with a strange power. He held up his palm flat as if to absorb Real-Riku's punch, but instead of just stalling the blow, a pale green psychic aura spread over Real-Riku's entire body. It bound him tightly, slowing his momentum to a halt and preventing movement. Fake-Riku yelled, " _It's no use!_ " He tauntingly held Real-Riku in place for a moment, then stepped back a bit, crossing his arms over his chest before pushing them away with a mighty roar: " _Taaake THIS!_ "

The mighty psychokinetic blast pushed Real-Riku backward through the gate. He skidded backward until he hit one of the columns in front of the main entrance. The heavy stone cracked when his body hit it. Real-Riku glared angrily back at the replica, eerily aware of the fact that whatever had happened to him had made him far stronger than before. In order to check how strong, he pulled a scouter out of his hammerspace and fit it onto his head, extending the visor and clicking the button on the side until it was targeting the fake.

Fake-Riku watched him as he did and laughed. "Riku, we already _made_ that joke." He took a dramatic battle pose, with his back hunched, his shoulders forward, his arms outstretched and his fingers bent. His palms surged threateningly with bright green plasma. "You may not be afraid of the darkness anymore, faker, but when I'm through with you, you'll just fear _me_ instead."

Real-Riku read the scouter's predictable output, then took it off, crushing it to pieces with one hand. There was a small grin on his face as he adjusted his bandana. A dramatic breeze rustled through his silvery hair.

Fake-Riku's wiry expression didn't fade in the slightest at first, but he did ask, with a slightly different tone, "What's with the smile?" His grin then decayed to a livid grimace and he screeched, "Because if you had one of those instant revelations that make you ten times stronger then I'm gonna be _real mad!_ "

"Been there done that," Real-Riku said. He pounded his right fist into his left palm with such force that it created a sonic boom. The wind stopped, and for a moment, everything was quiet. Then he said, "I just remembered that today's Friday. And you know what that means?" He smirked. "I get to stay up late tonight _and_ sleep in tomorrow!"

Judging by the unrestrained fury of Fake-Riku's expression, that wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear. He clasped his hands together and then spread his arms apart, causing ropes of light green plasma to be strung between his palms. "Come at me, faker! I'm gonna make you cry like an anime fan on prom night!"

Real-Riku obliged, running toward the fake at first, but before he was in range to get caught by Fake-Riku's psychokinetic grip, he cut to the right and slammed his entire body through the massive stone gate, immediately breaking through in an attempt to catch the replica off guard. Though not in position anymore to grab Real-Riku psychokinetically, Fake-Riku had anticipated this move and was already backflipping away. He landed with perfect balance on top of the other, undamaged half of the stone wall. He used his psychokinetic powers to pick up some of the scattered debris and yelled, " _How about this?_ " Then, after a moment of gathering them up into the air, shot them at Real-Riku from all sides, shouting, " _Taaake this!_ "

Now, of course, all Real-Riku had to do was shield his relatively small head from taking damage in order to escape from this attack unharmed. He did so by covering his entire cranium as best he could with his massive arms. However, this left him blind, and he knew that Fake-Riku would try something in the few second he was being bombarded with debris. Predicting his plan of attack, Real-Riku dove forward, both to dodge the potential attack and also to smash anything in his way. He landed on the ground, but after he recovered he saw Fake-Riku just getting to his feet the same way—he had tried to strike, but ultimately had to dodge instead, just as Real-Riku predicted.

There was a pause in the battle. So far, both combatants were effectively unharmed.

Fake-Riku took another dramatic pose, this time with his back straight, legs spread wide, his face into the arm of one elbow and the other outstretched parallel to the first. "You might know everything I'm going to do, but that's not going to help you since _I_ know everything _you're_ going to do! _Strange, isn't it?_ "

Fake-Riku came out of his dab to realize that Real-Riku had vanished. An instant later, the entire weight of Real-Riku came crashing down into his back, elbow-first, smashing the replica's body into the dirt and shattering his spine at the hips. They skidded for about ten meters, leaving a deep trench in the dirt along the way, before coming to a rest.

Fake-Riku gasped, and let out with a weak, raspy voice, "But, I... I was... _monologuing_..."

Real-Riku took a moment to dig his elbow out of the fake. Darkness, also known as E10+ blood, was pooling around the replica's torso. Real-Riku rolled him onto his back. Fortunately, as it were, the force of Real-Riku's strike had destroyed Fake-Riku's spinal cord from the chest down, and with it, his sense of pain. Still, with eyes already dead, Fake-Riku stared up at the clear blue sky. Feeling solidarity for someone nearly as buff as himself, Riku sat down on the grass next to him.

His voice shallow, the replica remarked, "You know... Now that the power I stole from Zexion is fading away, I feel a lot... what's the word, saner?" He chuckled, and then took a minute's pause. "I was thinking, earlier... It must be nice, being real."

Real-Riku nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty swood. Sorry you missed out, man."

"Kind of surreal, right? The way I look, the way I feel... Well, mostly, anyway. Everything I remember. Fake." His tone was peaceful, rather than the bitterness it had hosted minutes ago. He joked, "You should have called that final takedown strike the 'DMCA'."

Real-Riku laughed. Fake-Riku tried, but it came out wheezing and sickly.

He drew in a breath and continued. "I thought that by finding some new strength, I could finally _be_ someone. But..." He took another breath. "All that happened was that I got manipulated and controlled like a toy. Even knowing what was happening, I thought... Well, what else is there for me, right? Where could I go?" He turned his gaze to Riku, though it was unfocused. "You know, for what it's worth, we're both loyal to a fault."

Real-Riku just nodded and kept eye contact as the puddle of dark essence continued to grow around the replica.

"So... it's over, then," Fake-Riku said, closing his eyes. "Don't feel bad, by the way. This was... fun. Death doesn't scare me anyway. Good riddance to a phony life, right?" He drew in another labored breath. "But... I hate knowing that, with a fake heart, everything I'm feeling now is probably fake, too."

"What are you feeling?" Riku asked.

Fake-Riku didn't answer for a long time. Finally, he asked, so quiet that Riku had to lean in to hear, "What happens when a fake dies—one like me? Where will my heart go? Does it disappear?"

"It'll go somewhere," Real-Riku said. "Maybe... to the same place as mine."

Fake-Riku grinned a bit. "Psh. A faithful replica to the very end. But y'know what? ...That's okay." He shifted his hand a little bit. "Hey, no homo, but... Could you...?"

"No problem, man." Real-Riku took Fake-Riku's hand in his own.

He held it long after it had gone limp, and only let go when it had fully dissolved, melting into the pool of energized plasma that had composed the replica's body. Then, he sat by the pool until it fully dissipated, and for a good while afterward, cross-legged, back hunched over, and head in his hands.

* * *

Riku didn't linger in the courtyard too much longer, instead heading straight into the mansion. It was old and dusty; he constantly tripped over debris and one time caught himself on shards of glass. Luckily, besides a few nicks the size of paper cuts, his body shrugged it off. One room on the ground floor stood out massively, and Riku recognized it as the floor's exit.

Now back in Castle Oblivion, Riku saw that the floor's layout had changed. There was just a single hallway in front of him. One path, which he followed, into a much more open room ahead. Inside was a girl about his age in a plain white dress. She was sitting on a modern-style spinning office chair, spinning around. There was also a massive flower-bud shaped machine in the center of the room, but Riku couldn't tell what it was for.

He walked over to the girl. One of her legs was tucked up onto the seat, and the other was trailing along the floor, pushing occasionally to keep herself spinning. She was scribbling furiously onto a sketchbook, and through Riku caught glimpses of the image, it was lined so thick with ink that he couldn't really make anything out.

"Wha'cha drawin'?" he asked.

"Oh, it's my new yaoi about Riku and his—" Her fanatical smile morphed into a nervous grin as she spun around and realized who she was talking to. "...mmmassive biceps!" she added quickly.

"What's a yaoi?" Riku asked.

Ramune broke out in sweat a bit. "Um, oh, it's like, a comic book about how _awesome_ dudes are," she explained. "Like, everything about dudes. Dudes only. Really muscular ones, too. Err, sometimes. Most of the time!"

"Ha, sweet. A yaoi about me, huh? Can't wait to see it," Riku said. He widened his stance and turned around to flex and pose a bit, showing off his rippling back. "Make sure you capture the _entirety_ of my form."

Ramune's eyes widened as she watched those muscles bulge. She wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth and said, "Uhh, yep, for sure. Totally... taking it all in." She turned back to her drawing, then let out an exasperated moan; in her distraction, she had accidentally smeared over part of her drawing with her palm.

Riku heard the moan and said, "Woah, sorry. If this is too much for you to handle, I can stop."

"No, never mind," Ramune said, tossing her sketchbook over to the side. "You _are_ Riku, right?"

"That's me!" Riku said, pointing a thumb at his chest. "And you're Ramune, right?"

Ramune blew a tuft of hair out of her face. "May as well be, at this point."

"Pardon?" Riku asked.

"Nothing!" Ramune said, spreading out her arms and hands as though they were wings and offering Riku a big smile as she stood up from her chair. She took a breath. "Now, Riku, I want you to stay as calm as possible. Like... empty your mind, or whatever."

"Done," said Riku instantly.

Ramune blinked. "Okay... Then, look up at the machine behind me."

Riku looked at the machine. He still couldn't see what was inside.

"Now look back to me," Ramune said.

Riku looked.

"Now back at the machine. The machine contains _Sora!_ " Ramune said.

Riku looked back at the bud. The opaque screen on the front had been lifted, and Riku could see Sora floating within. " _Sora?!_ " He rushed up and began to bang on the screen. "Don't worry, buddy, I'll get you out! If you drown, Kairi will have my head on a platter!" The impact of his fists shook the facility and cracked the machine's bulletproof chassis.

"Riku, he's not going to _drown,_ " Ramune said, grabbing the bicep of the arm that wasn't banging on the bud, then feebly trying to pull Riku back. Given that one of Riku's arms was greater in mass than her entire body, she wasn't having much success.

Riku turned to Ramune and said, pointing with his other arm at the pod, " _I'm fifteen and what is this._ "

"He's just _sleeping,_ " Ramune insisted, still tugging at his bicep.

"That's what Mom said about my hamster!" Riku yelled. "And you know what happens when someone's in a sleep they can't wake up from? When you're not looking, they _run away._ " He turned back to the machine and shouted, " _You can't run from me, Sora! You hear me?!_ "

"Please don't break the machine! He's safe, the pod is thermoregulated, and he's listening to his favorite music!" Ramune said.

Riku blinked. "Oh." He straightened up and stepped back from the machine. "But... Like, Sora isn't a saiyan; what's with the liquid hospital pod?"

"He's getting his memories recombobulated," Ramune said. "You know, because his memories didn't combobulate right the first time."

"Meaning?" Riku asked.

Ramune took a deep breath. "Like... Sora went through the castle and stuff, and as he did, his memories got messed up. DiZ brought me here so that I could fix them again, but that takes time. But this was Sora's choice. He thought it would be better to get his old memories back and forget the Castle entirely."

"...I think I understand," Riku said. He waggled his arm a bit, the one that Ramune was still hanging on to. "Uh, you can let go now."

Ramune's hair bristled a bit. "Oops!" she said, sheepishly backing away from Riku. "Sorry about that. Anyway. Riku, you have a choice to make, too."

"Really? I mean, my memory isn't that good, but I don't think my head was messed with while I was done here _too_ much..." Riku's brow furrowed. "Unless someone made me forget I was being messed with."

Ramune shook her head. "Oh, don't worry. The person that was messing with Sora's memories has been taken care of and isn't a threat to anyone anymore."

"That's good. Who was it?" Riku asked.

Ramune blinked. "...Marluxia?" she hesitantly suggested.

"Gotcha. Glad he's done with, then," Riku said.

"Yeah, me, too. But this choice isn't about your memories, anyway. It's about your darkness. In your heart there is darkness, and in that darkness is Ansem, Seeker of Darkness," Ramune began. "He may be at bay for now, but if you leave him be, he'll get strong enough to take over your body just the way he did before. But, if you'd like, I can seal him away permanently. With my powers, I can put a tight lock on your heart. That way, Ansem could never resurface."

"Would I lose all my memories of this place, like Sora?" Riku asked.

"You'd lose your memories of the darkness, and everything that connects you to Ansem. That lock could be undone by a beyblade, but... I wouldn't recommend it," Ramune explained. "That being said... I don't know how long I'm going to be around, so whatever you decide, do it soon, so I can get back to work on Sora."

Riku mulled it over. He looked up at Sora, suspended in liquid as if by magic, as he wasn't hooked up to anything. "He doesn't even look worried," Riku remarked. "Would I sleep like that, too?"

Ramune nodded. "I mean, not in the same pod, but... Basically."

Riku thought about it a while longer, then eventually said, "Whatever Sora and I did together, he'd always find a way to slack off. Shoulda known that he'd be snoozing when I found him." He grinned. "Even trying to leave the islands, I did all the work on the raft by myself. Sora kept saying that tree trunks were too heavy. Like, seriously? With the right leverage, they're cake. Honestly, sometimes I wonder about that kid."

Ramune nodded eagerly. "I know, right?"

"When he wakes up, I'm going to give him a _serious_ workout. Just like I said I'd do when we reached mainland." Riku cracked the knuckles of his fingers. "You hear that, Sora? Double leg day. Double arms and shoulders. Do it until you're sore and then do it again tomorrow. That's the only way you'll get Kairi's heart. You have to take the _burn_ and turn it into a _blaze!_ " He punched the air above his head in a triumphant motion.

"Yeah!" Ramune said, mimicking him. "But... Aren't _you_ the one chasing after Kairi?"

Riku nodded. "I mean, yeah, she's great, but, between you and me... I kinda prefer blondes.

Ramune's eyes lit up and she nodded. "Oh, good! I mean, that you and Sora won't be competing!"

Riku nodded. "Yeah, I'd feel bad taking away his one opportunity to get some. Besides, he told me when he was little about his crush. I made sure he knew he had dibs, and you gotta respect that, right? Part of the Bro Code." He ran his thick fingers through his hair. "I'm going to need to keep up my workouts, too, if I want to be in good enough shape to train Sora. But I can't do that," he added with a smile, "if I've been asleep."

"Yeah! I mean, you should still sleep sometimes," Ramune added. "I-I mean, uh, forget it."

"I don't need my heart locked. I'm ready—I'm gonna fight Ansem," Riku declared.

"Do you have a plan in case his darkness overtakes you?" Ramune asked.

"Well... If that happens, then the darkness will show me the way," Riku said.

Ramune looked unconvinced, but she smiled anyway. "That sounds, yeah! I mean, it's not much of a backup plan, but, i-it's not like you really _need_ one, right?" She tugged on her dress.

"Yeah, things have always just seemed to work out for me. I mean, other than that time I got my entire body taken over by Ansem an hour ago. That sucked," Riku said.

"It's good, though. That you're facing the darkness," Ramune said. "Because... you're the one who _can_."

Riku snapped his fingers. "I got it. You're the one who pulled me out of the light when I was fighting Zexion."

Ramune laughed. "I was waiting for you to realize!"

"Explains why you came to my rescue. Fighting the darkness, man, it's a full time job. No wonder Sora sleeps so much," Riku said. "I've got one question, though. Why'd you use Kairi's voice instead of your own?"

Ramune blushed. "Uh... Familiarity." She kicked her sandaled foot a bit. "I thought you two were closer. Whoops."

"No big deal. Now that I think about it, you two are a lot alike. You both should hang out sometime. I'll introduce you," Riku said with a grin.

"Oh, um, thanks," Ramune said.

"Where do I go next? I mean, I don't really want to fight Ansem where anyone could be hurt. There a wide open space somewhere nearby?" Riku asked.

"The ground floor should probably work, or one of the rooms on the way," Ramune said, pointing to a door behind Sora's pod. "It's close by enough that I can prevent Ansem from escaping if things go wrong."

Riku gave her a thumbs-up. "Sounds good. Take care of Sora, will you? I've got demons to burn."

* * *

Riku opened the door, and nearly at his feet, saw Mickey.

"Gosh," the King said. "I guess you decided not to go to sleep."

"How'd you know that?" Riku asked.

"...Well, you're not asleep!" Mickey said plainly.

"Oh, right. That was a stupid question," Riku said. He looked to the side of the hallway and saw DiZ, who was carrying another bundle of clothing bags. "Woah! What's _he_ doing here?"

"Don't worry; he's on our side," Mickey said.

"Do you know him?" Riku asked.

"Well, we just met recently. I was workin' with him to help you develop your powers," Mickey explained. "When we planned everything out, though, I got the strange feelin' that I'd met him somewhere before."

"Yo, who are you, anyway?" Riku asked.

"...Apparently, I'm your worst nightmare," DiZ said with a cryptic glare. "However, you have experience working with nightmares. Perhaps, then, I'm your _best_ nightmare." He paused. "I'm not going to tell you anything about myself that you don't already know. It is up to you, then, to decide whether to believe in me... or not."

Riku pointed at him. "You are the epitome of cliché."

"And _you_ have chosen to face Ansem," DiZ said.

"Oh, glad to see we're both stating facts," Riku said, folding his massive arms. He arched an eyebrow. "What? Think I'm reckless?"

"That qualification is not up to me," DiZ said. He reached into one of his bags and brought out a set of gloves, then gave them to Riku. "Here. I got them in your size."

Riku eyed them skeptically. "What are these?"

"You have done great damage to the Organization. If you're on the move, they will catch your trail and pursue you. You may be strong, but there is no need to take unnecessary risks," DiZ explained. "These gloves will mask your presence. So long as they don't see you, you cannot be tracked."

Riku put them on. They fit snugly, and felt kind of like velvet. The exterior was something like leather. "Oh, sweet. How do they work?"

"Magic," DiZ said. He snorted twice. "They will also protect you, somewhat, from being devoured by darkness."

"Interesting," Riku said. "Now, how do I get started fighting Ansem? I can't exactly ring my heart's doorbell, can I?"

Diz took a card out of his sleeve, then tossed it to Riku.

Riku caught it and said, "You know, I'm right here. You could have just handed it to me."

"This card will draw out your heart's darkness," DiZ said. "Finish your business with Ansem."

Riku nodded. "All right. Let's do this."

Leaving DiZ behind, Riku and Mickey advanced to the next chamber. Riku stared at the card, which depicted nothing; there was only a blank, black square in the center. It vibrated slightly in his hand, and felt warm to the touch. The final room was different as well; strangely, there was no door at the end.

"Huh," Riku said. "Say, Mickey; how exactly does this card draw out Ansem?"

"I dunno!" Mickey said. "DiZ made it using the Organization's equipment. Seemed really familiar with it all, which is good, 'cause I couldn't make heads _or_ tails of it!"

"Are you sure we should be trusting this dude? What if he's a member of the Organization himself?" Riku asked.

"'The Organization's dress code forbids head coverings. Members are all encouraged to come up with the hairstyle that best suits their personality.' ...Is what it says in their handbook! So no, I don't think DiZ is one of them," Mickey explained. "Besides, if anything happens, I'm right here to save ya."

"Yeah... about that," Riku began. "Ansem is someone I need to face on my own."

Mickey looked concerned. "Why, though?"

"Ansem is my demon. I let him in. Now I gotta kick him out," Riku said. "There's no point in doing this if I can't do it on my own. But... I do need a favor." He crossed his massive arms. "If Ansem is the victor, he's going to enslave me. If that happens, I need you to use your powers to dest—"

Mickey interrupted him. "'Course, I'll get Sora and Ramune out of here in the giffy and make sure they're safe and sound!" he said.

Riku blinked. "Huh? No, that's not it; I want you to dest—"

"No way! No matter what happens, I gotta make sure no one else gets hurt," Mickey said. "That done, I'll work with DiZ day and night to figure out a way to save ya. I promise ya that." He kicked a bit at the ground. "Unless... You don't believe me..."

Riku sighed a bit. "I choose to believe in you—always, your mousiness."

"And I in you!" Mickey declared. "You're not gonna lose; I _know_ it."

"Glad to know you've got my back," Riku said.

He walked toward the end of the hall and held the card above his head. It shattered with the same noise as the others, but instead of bursting into light, it collapsed into darkness. It enveloped Riku like a cloak of opaque wind, feeling cold and withering on his pecs. Soon, it had swallowed him whole.

* * *

Riku had covered his eyes through the storm. When he opened them, he was in a long hallway, full of marble sculptures on marble podiums. The walls were decorated differently, with the Castle's coat-of-arms, also in marble... In fact, the entire room shared the same three shades of bluish-gray. The lighting was dim, though; Riku could hardly see. He waited for his eyes to adjust a bit, then he yelled, "Ansem! Where are you? Show yourself!"

A faint chuckling emanated from the end of the hall from a doorway Riku could not yet see. "Like, gosh, don't get your briefs in a bunch. I'll be here at the very heart of darkness... Watching you plunge into the same darkness—inside of you."

Riku yelled back, "You hear that? That was the sound of me _rolling_ my _eyes!_ " Then he started sprinting for the door.

"Yeah, I'll admit it sounded better on paper," Ansem said, "but, writing comes from the heart, and yours _sucks_ at it."

After a while of running, Riku came across a small shop on the side of the hallway. It looked rather out of place, being that it was assembled from wood in a castle of marble, and shoddily assembled at that, with nails sticking out of the roughly-carved boards and wet paint still glistening on the top frame. The paint read, " _Potion Seller_." A moogle fluttered his wings softly, tiny legs crossed as it levitated at the front, holding a tiny copy of _Munny Magazine._

"Potion seller," Riku began, "I am going into battle and I want your strongest potions."

"My potions are too strong for you, kupo," he said, without looking up from his magazine.

"Potion seller," Riku said, "I tell you, I am going into battle, and I want only your strongest potions."

The moogle looked up. "You can't handle my potions. They're too strong for you."

Riku took in a deep breath, then exhaled. "Potion seller—listen to me. I want only your _strongest_ potions."

"My potions would kill you, kupo. You cannot handle my potions." This said, he looked back at his magazine.

Riku placed his hands on the counter, careful not to get a splinter. "Potion seller: Enough of these games. I'm going into battle, and I need your _strongest_ potions."

The moogle's bauble wobbled a bit, moving to the back of his head. "My strongest potions would kill you, kupo. You can't handle _my_ strongest potions. You better go to a seller that sells weaker potions!"

Riku exhaled and clenched his eyes shut for a moment, running his palm over his face. "Potion seller. I'm telling you _right now_ , I'm going into battle, and I need only your _strongest_ potions."

The moogle tossed the magazine onto the counter, accidentally impaling it on a shard of wood, and folded his tiny arms. "You don't know what you ask, kupo! My strongest potions would kill dragon-kin, let alone man! You need a seller that _sells weaker potions_ , because my potions are too _strong._ "

Riku slammed his hands on the counter. "Potion seller! I'm telling you I need your strongest potions. I'm going into battle—I'm going to battle against the Prince of Darkness and I need your _strongest_ potions."

The moogle was getting red in the face. "You can't _handle_ my strongest potions! No one _can!_ My strongest potions aren't fit for a beast, let alone a man!"

Riku grit his teeth. "Potion seller, what do I have to _tell_ you to get your potions?! Why won't you trust me with your strongest potions, potion seller? I need them if I am to be successful in the battle!"

"I can't give you my strongest potions because my strongest potions are for the most masculine beings and you are of the most—"

" _RRUAAAGH!_ " In that moment, Riku reached his palms under the table and flipped it into the shopkeeper and through the wall with a mighty yell. Predictably, it crashed through the wall behind that, and the wall behind that... and so on.

Riku brushed wood chips off his arms. "Goddamn moogles." And then he continued on.

* * *

The door to Ansem at the end of the hall wasn't a doorway at all; only a gaping arch into the final chamber. The room was very large, about the size of a warehouse, but there was no echo. It was lit by candles, each burning a black flame that still somehow emitted light. The opposite end of the chamber opened into the howling void, and Riku shivered as he felt the parasitic darkness leeching on him from within, and without.

"No use hiding, Ansem. Show yourself," Riku said.

A puddle of darkness appeared in the floor. Riku barely noticed it at first, but as Ansem began to emerge from the ground, he stepped back into a battle stance. It took a few, very dramatic seconds for Ansem to fully surface.

"I've watched you fight, Riku. I know your strength, and stuff..." Ansem said. There were dark streaks of black eyeliner running diagonally outward from the exterior corners of his eyes and down his jaw to his chin. "Your skill with darkness has grown, too. It's become more," he paused to lick his lips, " _mature_."

Riku made a face.

"And yet, why... Why do you accept the darkness, but still refuse me?" Ansem demanded. "I mean, we have so much in common, right? We both, like, follow where the darkness leads, even if _you_ refuse to admit it sometimes. So why? Deep down, is your heart, like, still afraid of the dark? Because if that's true then you're pretty much the lamest of the lame."

Riku shook his head. "That's not it." He wound up, then slammed his fist into his palm, creating an explosive shockwave which knocked over the candles. Their oil spilled onto the ground and ignited. The walls were a chaotic flurry of light and shadow. "The truth is... You just have the most punchable face I've ever seen!"

Ansem sneered. "You should, like, _not_ underestimate me. You know my powers well by now." He flexed his arms, the the void screeched, buffeting Riku with the chill of darkness and the phantom pain of lost hearts.

Riku grit his teeth. "Yeah, I know. Or did you forget? I used all the power you had to give, and Sora _still_ beat me. I'm not at all impressed with your _powers._ "

Ansem smirked. "Very well. In that case..." He raised his arm, and the screeches became deafening. " _You shall, like, totally sink into the abyss!_ "

Riku put his giant hands over his ears. The chilling winds put out the flames and plunged the room into darkness; Riku wasn't blinded, however, as he could use his dark powers to navigate. Still, he had to shield himself from the burst of energy as best he could, covering his face with his arms and waiting it out. It was far more power than Ansem should have been capable of, however—at least, on his own.

Riku realized what was going and yelled, " _This must be the work of an enemy stand!_ " His epiphany was just in time; he leapt out of the way of a giant fist slamming down on the ground in front of him. Riku looked up; though he couldn't see, he could _sense_ the shape of Ansem's stand, Guardian, which was a giant black heartless creature. Its limbs were stretchy, knees weak, arms were heavy, that joke's been made already. Its face was a black skull with tar for sinew. Two long, spindly antenna sprouted from its head and trailed off to the sides. Riku swallowed. That thing was nasty. It was fatter than anyone he had ever met; Guardian dwarfed Ansem's size. Its morbid obesity and quadruple chins reminded Riku of why he had rejected Ansem in the first place.

"Holy cow, Ansem; what do you _feed_ that thing?" Riku asked.

Ansem grinned. "Your insecurity."

Riku yelled and charged at him. However, Guardian quickly stood in his way, and Riku's punch was deflected off his belly fat. Riku tried to knock him over, but due to Guardian's sheer mass, its center of gravity was like a neutron star; he couldn't be shaken. Riku tried to sidestep him, but Guardian just grabbed his shoulders and held him in place.

Riku tried kicking at the shadow's legs to throw it off balance, but its grip was firm. It wasn't easily overpowered, either; despite its flabby, unfit appearance, under all that cellulite must have been a dense muscular structure. Right? Riku was starting to sweat. Maybe everything he knew about fitness was wrong. How was this thing... how was it so strong?!

Meanwhile, Ansem was filing his nails. "You know, maybe I should just let you boys play while I finish dismantling the rest of your heart," he said.

Riku fumed, and aimed a punch at Guardian's face, yelling, "Not on my watch!" Guardian avoided the blow by sucking its head down into its fatty torso, then pulling its head back out using its antenna. Still, this moment of distraction allowed Riku to sweep out one of Guardian's legs, knocking it off balance. It rolled onto its side and then backward-somersaulted onto its feet.

"You underestimate the power of my stand," Ansem said with a dismissive flick of his fingers. His eyes lit up with a grin, and he proposed an alternative: "Join me, Riku, and I will make your face the greatest in Koridai, or else you will _die._ "

"Hey, Ansem, there's something on your face," Riku said as Guardian struggled to pull its head out of its neck cavity. He aimed a punch and sprinted at his foe, yelling, " _It was pain!_ "

Ansem, being an extremely agile opponent, ducked, flinched, and dodged out of the way of Riku's punches despite their incredible speed. He couldn't parry Riku's strength, however, and Riku knew that, so he did some quick thinking. He picked up one of the knocked-over candlesticks, bent it into the shape of a boomerang, and threw it at Ansem with so much speed that it looked like a frisbee. After Ansem dodged it, it turned right around and headed back toward him. Ansem evaded the second strike as well by jumping up and over the projectile, but Riku was waiting for him, and roundhouse-kicked him in midair.

Ansem sailed down into Guardian's waiting arms. Riku approached again with a flame in his eye and tried to pull the same stunt on Guardian again; this time, though, Guardian took the punch right on the kisser, then grabbed both of Riku's shoulders, pulled him in, and let out a disgusting belch into his face.

Riku stumbled backward, but sensed Ansem coming to grapple him; before he was able to, Riku grabbed Ansem's ponytail and slung him to the other side of the room. Because Riku was already off-balance, however, Guardian easily knocked him to the ground when he coughed and tried to clean out his eyes.

The three paused, looking at each other, in a form of stalemate while Riku and Ansem both picked themselves up.

"Ugh, I broke a nail," Ansem lamented.

"We're not going to get anywhere like this. If we keep going like we are, one of us is going to escape the other," Riku said. "What do you say we go all in?"

"My thoughts, like, exactly," Ansem said, recalling Guardian to stand behind him. He stared up at Riku's eyes and said, "Best. Of. One."

"You're on. Let's see what you got," Riku said, baring his shoulders and stretching out his arms. His muscles strained and pulsed, quivering with pent-up force. He squeezed his pecs up and down, moving them individually just to show that he could. Veins bulged all over his body as he demonstrated his masculinity and power. He was ready to end this, once and for all.

Ansem closed his eyes, considering his rebuttal. After a moment, he faintly whispered, " _Bankai._ " A tremor rocked the room, and chunks of rock at the end of the chamber broke off, sucked backward into the dark void. And eerie red glow flowed from the corners of the room to Ansem's boots, then up his legs to his arms, collecting in his right fist.

Riku bared his fist. "Rock."

Ansem steadied his stance. "Paper."

They both started running at each other, Riku's massive footsteps shaking the room in sharp contrast to Ansem's silent stride. "Scissors!" Then they put their fists forward.

" _Shoot!_ "

Riku threw rock. Ansem threw... something else.

"What is that?" Riku demanded, still holding his rock forward. "That isn't rock, paper, _or_ scissors? What are you planning?"

Ansem gave Riku a fake pout. "Aww, Riku. You, like, activated my _trap_ card." His right hand was in the shape of a finger gun. He pointed at it with his left. "Know what this is? It beats rock, paper _and_ scissors."

A chill ran down Riku's spine. "No... No, that's impossible! You _cheater!_ "

Ansem blew him a kiss. A little red dot appeared at the tip of his finger-gun. "Sorry, Riku. It looks like I win." Then the dot exploded, bathing Riku in intense, fiery radiation, blasting him backward into the wall. Ansem inspected the nails of his other hand while his mighty laser fried Riku's entire body, forcing him into the marble walls. Riku was too stunned to break free until it was over. Ansem watched as Riku fell to his knees, skin lobster-red and steaming, silver hair burnt black and falling off in clumps.

Riku stared up at Ansem with shock in his eyes. He was injured, but his breathing was strong. "I knew you were evil... but _this?_ "

"Like it? I've gotten more powerful inside your heart. Before long I'll take it for myself. Then you'll be _mine_ again," Ansem said. He motioned to Guardian. "Sit on him."

Guardian lumbered over and fell down onto Riku. Riku gasped as the air was squeezed out his lungs by the new three hundred kilos of pressure. "I... won't... let you!" he yelled.

"Oh? Have something up your sleeve?" Ansem asked. He smiled faintly. "You know, I can make the pain go away. All you have to do," he continued, leaning down in front of Riku, "is call me _daddy_."

"No!" Riku gasped. "I won't let you have my body! _Never again!_ " He put his hands on the ground under his shoulders and began to push up, feeling his ribs and spine straining under the weight, but slowly gaining height, inch by inch. He still had one trick up his sleeve—something he'd been saving all his life. And so, he heaved Guardian off of himself, scraped some of the sticky tar off his back that was left behind, and stood.

"Oh, still got some fight in you? Alright, fine. Since you so politely stood still for my easily dodgeable finger-gun attack, I suppose I'm obligated to hear you out," Ansem said, folding his arms.

Riku swallowed. This was all or nothing. He bared his chest, oriented his upper body to the ceiling, and screamed. Thus, the transformation began. Ansem was smiling at first, as though he was watching a child play in the playground, but he became a little more perturbed when that child grew two feet right in front of him. Riku's muscles rippled, bulged, then settled, growing more and more by the minute. And he _was_ screaming for minutes; whenever he had to take a breath, just for an instant, the expansion halted. It was almost as though his voice powered his growth like he was a sort of balloon, and was loud enough that Ansem found it wholly unpleasant.

When the evolution was complete, Riku stood two feet taller, and his arms, including the shoulder, had quadrupled in mass. His torso had graduated from titanic to colossal, and his legs experienced moderate growth as well. His head remained the same size, smaller even than one of his enormous fists. Also, his eyes were sharingans.

Ansem gaped. "Like, what even _are_ you?"

His opponent thought for a moment, then said, " _Buffer Riku_."

Ansem quickly regretted letting the process complete. Those arms took up nearly an eighth of the room all on their own; there was no way he could dodge Riku's strikes. Riku picked up the slower-moving Guardian and gripped him in his hands like a pudgy bean bag, then splattered him on the ground like an overripe tomato.

Ansem shrieked, then asked more levelly, "H-How?!"

Riku grinned savagely. "Nanomachines, son."

Ansem tried to scramble out of Riku's grip, wriggling between his fingers, but it was no use; before long, he was caught, gripped, and then slammed into the ground. Then picked up, and slammed into the ground again. This continued until finally Ansem cried uncle.

Hearing this, Riku set him down, and shuddered as his body neared its limit. To ensure he didn't disintegrate, he shrank back to normal size.

"Insolent... brat..." Ansem coughed, face-down on the floor. He was immobilized by the four hundred and twenty breaks and fractures spread throughout his body, let alone the internal organ damage.

Riku wasn't much better for wear. The transformation had grown back his silver hair and repaired his skin, but his muscles all felt like jelly. Still, he had enough strength to step his foot on foot onto Ansem's neck. "Ansem," he breathed, "this is... the end!"

"This... is hardly... the—end!" Ansem choked, coughing up a puddle of darkness as Riku increased the pressure. "Riku... I'm never... going to give you up. I'm never... gonna let you down. I'm never... gonna run around... and desert—!"

Riku snapped his neck before he could go any further.

Soon after death, Ansem's body collapsed in on itself, folding to a single point and then exploding in a cacophonous burst of dark energy. It was enough to knock the weakened Riku over, and he fell onto his back, bathed in darkness. He had only one thing on his mind:

" _I can't... go. Sora... still owes me a twenty!_ "

A shimmering light appeared before him. "Gosh, Riku," it said, "I knew money was tight with you, but you don't have to be a Moogle about it." Then the King appeared, grabbed Riku's right hand, and, inch by inch, dragged him out of the dark wake Ansem had left behind.

* * *

It took a little while to recover, since Riku wouldn't let DiZ touch his body, even though the mysterious figure was apparently an EMT _and_ physician. Thus, DiZ had to apply medical care solely through Mickey, which was cumbersome at first, but before long they had got the hang of it. Thanks to the nanomachines™ in Riku's bloodstream, all that was really necessary was burn cream and bandages. DiZ left a bit early to figure out how to leave the castle while Riku rested. He took a while to recover, evident by the fact that Maleficent crashed through the floor of the makeshift hospital room three times while he waited for his muscle fibres to knit back together, stronger than before.

"So, Riku, what happens next?" Mickey asked once his protege was finally on his feet again. "Are ya goin' home?"

Riku, who had an extremely limited range of motion due to the bandages plastering his entire torso, didn't look at Mickey when he said, "I can't go home. Not yet." He clenched his fists. "It's still here. It's really faint, but I can sense him. So... I think his darkness may still have a hold on me."

"Your darkness belongs to you! Just the same way your light does," Mickey said. "Up 'till now, I thought that darkness was something that should never exist. Then, I spent time with you and changed my mind." He paused, then added, "I'm still not sure about the blacks, though."

Riku waved his hands and said, "Woah, woah! Mickey, c'mon. Not cool."

Mickey looked up at him skeptically. "What? Can't friends share opinions?" He clasped his hands behind his head as he walked. "Any-way, the road you chose, I didn't know anything about. Light and dark, back to back? With you, though, I think they might meet in a way nobody's seen before." He smiled, even though he was technically always smiling. "Wonder where that road leads. I'd like to see, myself!" He reached up his hand toward Riku's. "In fact, I'd like to walk the road with ya!"

Riku arched an eyebrow. Because he couldn't really move his shoulders, he bent his knees until his hand was at Mickey's level, then weakly shook it.

"Your mousiness, I'm really flattered. I don't know what to say," Riku said.

"Well, _your majesty_ might be nice, once in a while!" Mickey suggested.

"Sure thing, Mickey," Riku said.

* * *

They met DiZ outside the castle at a crossroads. The chaotic background of the in-between quickly faded to green grassland plains as they left Castle Oblivion behind. It was dark out, and crickets chirped in the background. The stars were bright against the clear night sky, and there was a cool breeze flowing through Riku's hair. Unlike Ansem's dark chill, however, this breeze was fresh and crisp, the signal of a new day. Riku was limping most of the way, but he was alive and well, and that's what mattered most. He scowled, though, when he saw DiZ standing in his way.

"What are you making me choose now?" Riku asked.

DiZ held up a bundle of blue bandages. "Do you think that my head would look better in blue?"

"...Nah, red's fine," Riku said.

DiZ nodded, setting the bundle back in its bag. "Good thing I kept the receipt. There is a more important choice at hand, of course. You must decide to the road to light," DiZ said, motioning to his left, "or the road to darkness," he added, motioning to his right.

"Which one gets me the furthest away from you?" Riku asked.

DiZ considered that. "My fate is bound to Ansem, similar to yours. Therefore, the sooner you are rid of Ansem, the sooner you will be rid of me,"

Riku nodded, then held up a finger. "Sec." He pulled a smartphone out of his hammerspace and tapped on it a bit. "...Moogle Maps says that the nearest gym is actually _that_ way," he said, pointing behind DiZ, "so that's the way I'm headed."

"Is that the twilight road to nightfall?" DiZ inquired. Then he whispered, " _Wink wink._ "

Riku checked his phone again as he walked. "Nah, it's Glenn Street. You really need a smartphone, dawg."

"So much for being thematic," DiZ said with a sigh. "In any case, there's no reason for you to walk that path alone. Or even walk at all, in your state." He pulled a set of car keys out of his front satchel and clicked a button. There was a beeping noise.

After a few moments, a 1961 Chevrolet Impala lowrider drove up over the path, bouncing a bit from the steep incline before settling down and pulling up next to Riku. It was painted maroon, with a flame decal running along both sides. Because the top had been stripped off, there was room for Riku to fit in the back seat.

"Gosh, DiZ. You are just _full_ of surprises. Shotgun!" Mickey said, hopping into the passenger's seat. Riku glanced again at his phone—it was a two hour walk—and decided maybe it was a good idea to get inside DiZ's car. Aside from some soda stains here and there on the seats, it looked to be in pretty good condition. The car groaned when Riku got in; its frame hung low to begin with, and now it was nearly scraping bottom. Still, that didn't seem to concern DiZ as he got in and revved the engine.

He turned on the radio, and then together they drove to the gym.


End file.
